Set and Setting - V - Magic

Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.

Introduction

And lo! Here we come to a thorny but massively looming subject, a fraught and murky first sweep that merited being waited out for the first fifty-odd posts from the blog’s inception. Before even thinking of tackling any of the classes proper there is groundwork that needs to be laid as concerns the whole of magic use.

If we’re being honest, this may effectively count as rewriting a significant chunk of each of several classes in one sitting. I've cast the net of influences far and wide, so gathering my whole thinking in one post helps me keep clear what I’m doing and will aid in maintaining a more cohese, referable and transparent approach designwise. 

Given the nature of the fantasy game, even for what is to be a low-magic setting lensed through to a low fantasy style of play, magic is a special subject that casts a huge pall over the proceedings. Shoving its connection to the fundamentals of a setting’s cosmogony aside for the moment, it is the enthroned nature of its importance in the minds of players that lends the topic such weight.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t happy with the rules as presented, being that I’m fully against the idea of magic as something stable, asseptic and reliable, reduced to the status of mere technology. To add some dirty fuel to this fire, it soon became apparent that game balance would be fast becoming a mirage in the rearview mirror the more I tinkered with things. Yet tinker I did, so that, more than just getting my design rocks off, I hoped to follow through with aiming them square at hornets’ nests.

The Colours of Magic (now in Technicolor)

DnD across its miriad incarnations never made too much fuss out of diverging spellcasting methodologies, aknowledging various methods, sources of power, domains or subtypes on paper, but being perfectly content to let a simple unified system bear the load, with differentiation shipped to the activating stat, fating all spellcasters to be similarly efficient, seeing as no matter the mental stat being used for spellcasting, all would be equally attributed a high number and, no matter the class’s underlying principles, it would always come down to slots and the spells to fill them. It’s never really made clear how the common man might set Wizard apart from Cleric and why one might be reviled where the other is revered.

Mechanically speaking, “Vancian”, too, is no longer a term that comfortably describes the system, as a number of developments were introduced, all of them gravitating in the direction of more magic, more casually, more of the time, shifting from the traditional “nuclear” magic-user with few but decisive slots to the “bag of tricks”, curbed from hitting the high notes in power but endowed with a dizzying (and reliable) versatility that puts the magically-impaired to shame, cantrips in particular becoming such offenders that a creative player can extract enough uses out of them to fill in for a whole party’s worth of monkey wrenching.

Whereas Fourth edition found no other way of reconciling the quadratic with the linear than to leash both to the same length of rope, Fifth edition’s approach was to develop the post-Vancian paradigm even further, with the special daily use abilities of certain classes being repurposed as spells and also accessed through slots, further devaluing the concept of magic by generalizing its access to most all classes bar the few remaining holdouts of a couple of martial archetypes.

This post comes to initiate a veer in direction. Instead of reducing everything to the same generic system, Magic (and the classes that wield it) can be turned into a bit more compelling a concept by way of some uniqueness, reintroducing notions of magic as something treasured, daring and finite and of wizards being willing to swing a sword if pressed into it.

The plan was not to raze everything to the ground as, despite the subject matter, there is no need to turn the process into something arcane and have players solve rubik’s cube to blind their foes with kabbalistic numerology. Rather, to add some branching gradation to classic methodologies and mechanics without upturning the raft whole, being aware, even in my relative geek naïveness, that magic systems are a pinnacle of heartbreaking of sorts and have run the gamut through the ages with possibly little if anything to gain from being overbearing and abstruse. Repeating my oft-lapsed mantra, I don’t honestly look at having complexity be the answer, I just want to escape the dull grey swamps of sameness even if I have to take a few design risks to pull it off.

In the end, what kindles my interest is usability and flavour. Balance, too, may come eventually along, daintily dragged by rope and bruised at the knees, if anything.

Spell lists and descriptions - what this post isn’t about

What is contained herein is a litany of practices explaining the setting’s different spell-using classes. Each class’s proprietary list as well as the individual spells themselves, though both deserving of revision, are off the limits of today’s effort and the same going for the classes proper. Such a time will be heralded once a player actually decides to pick a magic user as an avatar and the associated wormvessel is duly shattered.

If you do a blog post about magic you're contractually obliged to use this picture.

Vancian Latitudes

As design options go, the core book’s biggest sins regarding the magic system are that it’s either boring, uninspired, lazy or boring. Magic comes across as this streamlined, all-figured-out kind of thing whose design was clearly more concerned with neatness and a sense of playground-fairness than with ever even hinting at the feel of unbridling that magic ought to evoke.

Bounding past the choice of not breaking with the past and settling for the classic Vancian spellcasting as my major design constraint, I wish to lay out the system’s constituent elements. The following will touch on both fluff and crunch but the whole of it ought to be of use in defining a caster’s place in the setting, on what amounts to a series of branching paths, flowing down from the power’s source and taking final shape in one of the established caster traditions.

Considering the Source – the Divine, the Primordial and the Arcane

First to be considered must be the prime movers of magic, emanating from three archetypical sources of power:

Divine magic emanates from full-fledged Deities, who by dint of whim, interest or passion have cast their lot with mankind’s fate, sometimes being outright entwined with it. Contained herein are the very forces that shape the wheeling ways of the world and that enforce everything that will ever matter, from the eternal turn of the seasons to the cycles of life and death.

Primordial energies flow from a removed “thou”, that despite possibly commanding sufficient power to integrate a pantheon and suscitate structured worship simply transcends the concept entirely, either by definition or by being antithetical to humankind. Entities like Demons, Titans, Nature Spirits or even transplanar Others. Untinged by civilization, impervious to human understanding, unfettered by moral considerations and utterly indifferent to the shallow trials of mortality. These profane energies fuel those aligned, knowingly or otherwise, with entities wholly given to entropy, chaos or the aloof indifference of nature.

Arcane power is extracted from the unbounded potential within the self, the barriers that contain it broken down through whichever accidental combination of fortune and entropic trauma. It is at once the most crude by origin and sophisticated by design, the most tightly reined and the most spectacular. Its existence by itself testimony of a profoundly upsetting shift of a world’s inherent balance, as it embodies the usurpation by mankind of the wherewithal of greater powers.

Channeling the Source

Beyond the three mystical wellsprings, there is an overlying duality explaining the mediation of access to each of them: a divide of methodologies, the first based on revelation, humility and submission to higher power, the other on discovery, appropriation and solipsist hubris, such are the differences between Conduits and Shapers.

Conduit

Power.

A Conduit has it but it is borrowed. And the borrowing’s the thing.

Drawn by calling, feverish search or inscrutable whimsy, a character can become conversant with the supernal. For some, even this summit may be scaled past as one sees oneself fall into an entity’s unknowable good graces, becoming chosen as a recipient to its power, a mouthpiece to its glory and made to ingress upon the great cosmic chessboard.

The benefit of interpreting the second-hand dreams of an invisible metaphysical superfigment and passing them onto edict, lending the thing its reality and hoping it doesn’t forfeit yours comes at a price. Settled along monomania’s inner border, the patron becomes a palpable and undeniable part of the character’s worldview, if not his sole reason for living, whatever use reserved for its surrogated energies loud and unabashedly proclaimed as furtherance of its cause. A bargain deal, if ever one.

Shaper

The direct harnessing of magical energy, with no demiurgic mediation, is the state of orphaned self-sufficiency that defines a Shaper.

In a world where magic actually exists, the crucible of mortal obsessions and fickle godly disputes ere long guided the next step past the stealing of fire and deposited into the questing hands of mystical pragmatists the means to tamper with the province of greater powers, caressing the elements, warping reality and ruffling the feathers of fate, all at the tip of the digits and at the behest of one’s usurping pride.

Yet, a Shaper’s strength is built from weakness, a focus on the lacking implied by left-handed use of power purloined from upon high: no guidance on how to leverage it, no cushioning for the falls that may come.

As temporal power corrupts mortal hearts so must magical one – at the best of times – elicit similar debasement, paving a causeway to utter and absolute perdition of mind, body and spirit. Whereas those espousing the glories of heavenly bodies keep humanity safely chained in perpetuation of the cycle and acting within its bounds, the few dabbling soothsayer primates who would break it wilfully risk loosing all the evils into the world in exchange for spurious knowledge and tawdrier power.

Art and Tradition

The end result of pairing each of the three metaphysical power sources with one facet of the channelling diad thus shapes the different magical traditions and explains the setting’s ensemble of spellcasting character classes, some of them Conduits for a higher power, others independent Shapers of raw energy, where we get:

- The Bard, a Divine Shaper (spellcasting attribute: Charisma)

- The Cleric, a Divine Conduit (spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)

- The Witch, a Primordial Shaper (spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)

- The Druid, a Primordial Conduit (spellcasting attribute: Wisdom)

- The Wizard, an Arcane Shaper (spellcasting attribute: Intelligence)

- The Sorcerer, an Arcane Conduit (spellcasting attribute: Charisma)

The Crunch

The main thing to be impressed upon players is that magic has a jagged edge and its performance cannot be taken for granted. Given this, there was a need to balance this design thrust with the pitfalls of the system becoming a complete lottery. The crucial point is for a referee to clearly and consistently communicate the wagers to the player and to keep the decision in his hands. Both source of power and channeling method have implications on certain basic aspects of a class’s spellcasting technique, with some of the features present in Fifth edition being preserved, such as concentration, ritual casting and spell enlargement by slot.

1. All in the Mind – Mental Attributes and Spellcasting

Instead of boiling down the efficacy of a given magic tradition to one single attribute the decision was made that all three mental stats should be concurrently involved in the making of an optimal caster.

Intelligence: focus, memory function and the cerebral part of casting, influencing the capacity to learn and retain spells in the mind, represented by spell slots.

- Intelligence impacts a spellcaster’s slot capacity, explained for ease of reference by the following table, with the benefits or penalties being cumulative; slot additions or deductions are applied only once the character is of a high enough level to access the corresponding spell tiers:

-4	-3	-2	-1	No mod.	+1	+2	+3	+4
One less level 4 slot	One less level 3 slot	One less level 2 slot	One less level 1 slot	N/A	Additional level 1 slot	Additional level 2 slot	Additional level 3 slot	Additional level 4 slot

- Concentration is a function of Intelligence (see “7.1 Concentration”).

Wisdom: the more empirical and prosaic aspects of casting, defining how at ease the caster is with the practice of his tradition and how deftly he can manage the ritualization required to both reacquire spells as well as to bring their effects safely into existence.

- Slot recovery and spell preparation time are both impacted by Wisdom (see “4. Preparing Spells”);

- Miscasts generate magical backlash (see “6.2 Sour Magic”), which can be avoided by way of a Wisdom saving throw.

Charisma: the instinctual qualities of the caster’s inherent resolve, important for beseeching the divine and, for Shapers, outright defining the sheer force of will imparted to their molding efforts upon the fabric of reality.

- Influences, directly or indirectly, the save difficulty of a caster’s spells (see “2. Spellcasting Attribute”).  

2. The Spellcasting Attribute

As determined by each class, the attribute employed by a spellcasting tradition resumes its role in determining the modifier applied to magical attack rolls and the difficulty of saving throws made by targets against the caster’s spells:

Spellcasting Roll:

- D20, plus spellcasting attribute modifier, plus proficiency modifier

Spell Save Difficulty:

- Conduit: DC of [(variable*), plus spellcasting attribute modifier, plus proficiency modifier]

- Shaper: DC of [(halved Charisma total), plus spellcasting attribute modifier, plus proficiency modifier]

* base number varying by divine favour or strength of supernatural patronage, typically in the 5-9 range (see “4.1 Preparing Spells - Divine Sanction”);

3. Learning and Acquiring Spells

A character’s starting spells are always randomized for any caster class. From that point on, Conduits continue acquiring spells as dictated by the will of the gods (which is to say randomly determined), unlocking new boons as they advance in class levels, whereas to Shapers spells function more like equipment, meaning levels grant only increased slot capacity but none of the contents with which to fill it with, research and exploring effort having to be put into their development or acquisition.

- Known spells are drawn from a class’s proprietary list and acquired by characters in a way consistent with their spellcasting tradition:

- A Conduit’s spells are randomly determined.

- A Shaper’s spells are acquired through play.

4. Preparing Spells

The spell preparation process goes back to basics, abolishing the difference between prepared spells and slots, as the act of preparing a spell directly fills an available slot and rigidly fixes the level at which it will be cast (retaining the possibility of spell enlargement).

As one of the most tangible measures of spellcasting power, slots define the number of times casters may avail themselves of the mystical power to alter reality before the mind gives out. Multiple slots bearing the same spell representing an abstraction for a reinforced idea of the same magical knowledge being etched deeper in the mind of the spellcaster and, with the last slot expired, the particulars of a spell deserting the caster’s mind like so many grains of sand between outstretched fingers.

Preparing spells is a term that sums up an array of metacognitive mnemonic processes that, once committed to memory through the preparation rite, allow the spells to be triggered at a moment’s notice.

- A spellcaster recovers half of his total spell slots with each daily rest, modified by Wisdom (minimum of one), starting with those of lower level.

- Preparing spells requires a mind fresh from a night’s rest and takes a number of hours equal to the highest level of spells being prepared minus the character’s Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1 hour).

4.1 Divine Sanction

Conduits (except for the Sorcerer) furthermore must beseech their deity for power, which has momentous repercussions beyond spell preparation:

- To enact a beseeching, the character must devote at least an entire day to his deity, observing and participating in rites, engaging in contemplation, prayer and study. The following morning, the player makes a Reaction Roll modified by the character’s halved Charisma modifier, the result determining his base Spell Save Difficulty. This bond will then slowly fade by one point for every undedicated day gone by, until a new beseeching takes place.

5. Requirements for Casting

Wizards may be subtle but spellcasting is, if anything, rather obvious. Like a prelude to lightning, paying witness to someone tapping into arcane forces will dry the mouth, tingle the spine and raise the hairs on end before a character’s even fully cognizant of what is happening.

Spells are cast in a way consistent with each class’s magical tradition, necessitating first and foremost that the caster enter a state of near-trance, of intense and absolute focus, facilitated to a degree by fetishistic aid ranging from manual tracing of patterns and vocal intonations to the use of materials that, through their mystical significance, propitiate the desired effects.

- Spellcasting requires both hands free, the only exceptions being afforded to items classed as components or focuses.

- Casting requires freedom of movement, such that a character cannot be Encumbered and, in order to cast while wearing armour, must be proficient with its use.

- Vocal components require that the caster be able to speak freely, Somatic components require that the caster have freedom of movement, Material components require that the necessary materials be held in the caster’s hand during the act of casting.

- Conduits must cast by loudly adressing their patron and their nature can be ascertained by onlookers, as they invocate changes upon the natural world, the more overt effects, if any, appearing to come from a source other than the caster himself.

- Shapers must speak in at least a normal tone of voice while performing their incantations. The glinting motes emitted by their gesticulation rendering their glamouring efforts plain and obvious to all.

6. Spellcasting

6.1 The Spellcasting Roll

Translating force of will into conjured flame is a delicate and exacting practice and not an easy one to reconcile with the vicissitudes of adventuring. Rigorous hypno-meditative concentration is required not just to maintain lingering magical effects but must also be achieved, along with precision of gesture, to enact the casting of a spell, the act being prone to disruption when attempted in adverse conditions. A spellcaster aspiring to adventure must be able to deal with far more than the average white plastered room, steeling the mind to everything ranging from being jostled in a crowd to the vigorous motion of riding a mount, the rigours of weather or being grappled, all of these being things that can and will impact a casting’s inherent risk, the fallout of which can sour into mischanneled magic that, depending on the stability of the source of its power, will generate a gamut of diverse reactions as natural law is reasserted and reality reknits itself from the attempted disruption, sometimes seamlessy, oftentimes violently.

- The act of spellcasting is always mediated by a Spellcasting Roll, whose base standard difficulty is that of the spell’s level.

- If a spellcaster divides his turn’s attention by doing anything other than focusing on the spellweave – including movement – or is subjected to external interference, this will reflect as an increase on the DC of the Spellcasting Roll, applying only the highest penalty from the following list:

- Minor disruptions* (5´ of movement, use of bonus action) will account for a DC increase of 5;

- Moderate disruptions* (movement beyond 5’, minor physical disturbances) a DC increase of 10;

- Serious disruptions (physical disturbance, such as being pressed amid a crowd or trying to cast from a moving chariot) will account for a DC increase of 15;

- Major disruptions (exposed amid a snowstorm or on a wave-tossed boat) will imply a DC increase of 20;

* players can move freely or use bonus actions after casting the spell, but must communicate to the referee their intent to do so in advance so as to adjust the DC to account for the rushed casting.

- In addition to the highest penalty originated by disruptions applying to the casting roll, the following hurdles must all be separate and cumulatively considered:

- Damage suffered by the spellcaster between the end of his previous round and his current initiative step will mean the casting roll’s DC increases by one per each point sustained of bodily harm;

- Concentration on active spells being currently maintained adds their spell level to the DC;

- For Spellcasting Rolls that are also Spell Attack Rolls, the AC of the target is used instead of the DC if it is higher.

6.2 Sour Magic

Failure to rigorously perform during the casting will mean the spell’s weave is compromised just as its power is channeled into being and the conjuring must be brought to a halt.

- A spell that fails to manifest remains intact in the caster’s memory unless it was an attack roll.

- Critical success discharges the spell without it departing the caster’s memory.

- If the caster outright fumbles during his channeling, magical energies lash about wildly, requiring a Wisdom saving throw with the same DC as the Spellcasting Roll (or half of that for Conduits) to regain control of the casting and bring the volatile energies under control. On a failure, a roll must be made on the Mischanneling Table presented below. Divine casters roll with a d4, Primordial casters roll with a d8 and Arcane casters roll with an explodable d12.

Magic.

6.3 Casting in Combat and Ruined Spells

- Casting a Spell in melee is an action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

- Being hit by an attack amid the delicate casting process immediately ruins a spell and strikes it from memory.

- A spell successfuly cast can still fail for reasons external to the caster, whether due to inadequate targetting choices or unpropitious external conditions. Invoking spells that admix inimical elements such as fire and water can have all manner of unexpected effects but most often results in failure.

- Spellcasters that become wounded as a result of rolling on the Dismemberment table immediately have all of their spells wiped from memory, due to shock.

7. Teeth, toes and other trinkets – Concentration, Cantrips, Rituals

7.1 Concentration

Certain spells have enduring effects that last while the caster affords them his low-level concentration, with a lapse of this mental foothold dispelling all active dweomers with no further effect.

- A caster can keep a total of simultaneous effects requiring Concentration equal to his Intelligence modifier (minimum of one).

- Concentration can be kept without testing, even in the face of disruptions, as long as the character acts normally, but it must be tested if the character endures serious physical disturbance or otherwise divides his attention. This is done by rolling an Intelligence saving throw of either DC 10, the summed spell levels of the active effects or the damage sustained in an attack, whichever is highest.

7.2 Cantrips

Spells that, once prepared, are dischargable at either their full power or as a minor manifestation internalized by rote and fuelled by a shard of the spell's power itself (aka a cantrip).

- Cantrip is a keyword;

- Spells with this keyword are regular spells in all regards other than being castable as cantrips; 

- Whenever cast as a cantrip, the caster must roll an exhaustion die determined by the slot occupied by the spell, with a ‘1’ result meaning the spell is wiped from the caster’s memory: a level 1 slot rolls a d4, a level 2 a d6, etc, up to a maximum of d12.

7.3 Rituals

Spells that stand to be replicated in ritualized form can have their effects manifested by alternative means. These sinuous invocations, being precursors of and not actual spells in the true sense of the word, rely instead on extensive fetishistic aid, meticulous preparation and observant repetition, trading immediacy for treasured stability.

- Rituals dispense with both the memorization process and a Spellcasting Roll, stressing time and the use of material components instead;

- The duration of a ritual is twenty minutes per spell level; If disturbed during its enactment, it must be started anew.