What Are Your Magic-User House Rules?

[Sir Bedivere]

Master Lok, I'm glad you like it and thanks for the ideas. I am planning on putting out one more expanded revision, so if you have any further suggestions, or feedback on what's in it now, please let me know.

Your experience with Magic-Users matches my own, except in my campaigns people stopped playing single-classed MUs fairly early on. For most of my years playing D&D, the only MUs were multi-classed characters.

The whole thing with metal armor never bothered me. If you don't allow multi-classed MUs to wear metal armor, then it seems like one could incapacitate an MU by putting him in a metal cage, or forcing him to wear chainmail. You could even have a small room with stone facade walls over iron to trap a powerful MU. I think the concept is pretty interesting, but in the past it's seemed like more trouble to work out all the ramifications than it was worth. Thinking about it now, it seems kinda cool and maybe I should add it to the supplement.

Fair warning: If you insist on the class making sense, you'll get expelled from the Old School .

I've got the completed second version out in the Project Feedback thread. It's updated from the one I posted above.

[Joe the Rat]

I can see the reasoning from a balance perspective, but having an in-story rationale is good as well. Rolemaster had some loose justifications along the "blocking the flow of mana" thing which would follow.

The whole thing with metal armor never bothered me. If you don't allow multi-classed MUs to wear metal armor, then it seems like one could incapacitate an MU by putting him in a metal cage, or forcing him to wear chainmail. You could even have a small room with stone facade walls over iron to trap a powerful MU.

So, like a Faraday cage?
his would actually be pretty appropriate for dealing with the Fey Mage variant.

[Sir Bedivere]

Yep, just like a Faraday cage.

Another issue is whether it is just iron or all metals that block the magic. Could an MU wear bronze armor?

Consider also the effect when a dungeon hall goes through an ore-rich area.

[Dimirag]

There are lots of ideas about mages and armors as there are for magic itself...

Some say its the reduction in mobility that affects spell, but this only would apply to spell with physical components, but BF doesn't use Components but the GM could say the mage requires some movement and wearing armor hampers this...

If it the "metal" on the armor... its because it doesn't allow the spell to sprout from the mage? or simply cancels magic? If it cancels magic then how metal golems move? And wouldn't an fully metal armored fighter will impervious to some spells?

I prefer the "focus" approach: Casting a spell requires some mental focus, and wearing armor is uncomfortable to the point of ruining any casting...

Wearing armor in a comfortable way needs training, and training needs time, MU prefer using that time studying the Arcane ways rather than wearing something they probably won't really use.

Those of Multiclass that are trained in wearing armor can use it wile casting magic, but as they never learned how to do this (armored casting) the will have a chance of spell failure (a flat percentage, maybe based on spell level)...

[teluria]

I have played around with various magic user systems and they all seem to come down to three issues:

1) Can Mages become too powerful, too fast? Considering that Area of Effect spells can make the Mage very powerful at some point, either directly or through control of other creatures, this is a legitimate concern.
2) What mechanism do we use to manage #1?
3) How do we explain/justify what we decided in 2?

Everything else is, to a large extent, window dressing.

The system I've used in the past said Mages get levels of spell that they can cast as per the basic rules. So if they have one first level spell and two second level spells they can case 5 levels a day. How they want to split that up is up to them. (1 second level and 3 first level, 5 first level, etc)

They can cast any spell they know. However, if they don't have it in their spell book, they are out of luck, unless it's on a scroll or item.

Spells are very jealously guarded by their owners and a mage will demand a great deal of money or service to teach someone else a spell. Scrolls can be transcribed into a spell book, but still require training from someone who already knows the spell, since the gestures, etc require training. A scroll is able to be cast but it's a single use sort of thing and the scroll is a magical item itself, which is why the gestures etc aren't needed the way they would be if a caster was casting the spell from memory.

I've thought about looking at a system that was in Fudge that was more of a free form system, but I'm not sure I want to tackle it quite yet. It allowed the mage to build skills in various skills and experiment with spells to the point that they could be more flexible, but spells wouldn't always work nor would they always have the intended effect. Much more like the magic in Alan Dean Foster's Spell Singer and Christopher Stasheff's A Wizard in Rhyme.

[Solomoriah]

The system I've used in the past said Mages get levels of spell that they can cast as per the basic rules. So if they have one first level spell and two second level spells they can case 5 levels a day. How they want to split that up is up to them. (1 second level and 3 first level, 5 first level, etc)

Imagine a 10th level magic-user with all his or her levels applied to Magic Missile.

Or Fireball.

This is why I believe point systems don't work, as I've explained before. At least, not so long as you use the spells "as is" from the rules.

[SmootRK]

The system I've used in the past said Mages get levels of spell that they can cast as per the basic rules. So if they have one first level spell and two second level spells they can case 5 levels a day. How they want to split that up is up to them. (1 second level and 3 first level, 5 first level, etc)

Imagine a 10th level magic-user with all his or her levels applied to Magic Missile.

Or Fireball.

This is why I believe point systems don't work, as I've explained before. At least, not so long as you use the spells "as is" from the rules.

It is also the reason that I don't like to give out the traditional wands/staffs with charges... huge power increase (typically for combat spells anyhow) for short period. I prefer instead to use Channeling Wands (or other items - See that supplement), as the power increase does not come from increased number of spells, but from increased flexibility of spell choice. Such channeling items are more akin to a magical sword for a fighter... a small boost in overall power that accompanies the warrior for as long as it is useful, perhaps only to upgrade later when a better item is acquired.

[Solomoriah]

I give wands fairly frequently, actually. The boost in overall power is balanced by the fact that, not knowing how many charges they have, players tend to be parsimonious with them.

[SmootRK]

I give wands fairly frequently, actually. The boost in overall power is balanced by the fact that, not knowing how many charges they have, players tend to be parsimonious with them.

Oh, I give them out periodically too, but a bit more sparingly and usually with lowered number of charges. I just find the channeling items better suited for the long term.

Would you prefer a Sword with charges for attacking, something disposable once it is depleted? Or something that gives a bonus that lasts as long as nothing better is found to replace it? Seems like a better item, overall.


But my point was that changing the spell system to purely point based, makes for unbalances in spell power, akin to giving a wand of magic missile but only slightly more limited in the times per day (by forgoing higher level spells). I don't do it that way, but was one of the reasons that I chose to re-examine the spontaneous caster method for the Fey-Mage with much more limited casting options (essentially may cast from a very limited set of choices, freely choosing from within each spell level, but not being able to use other spell levels for lower level spell). I would perhaps allow Fey-Mage style casting to utilize higher level spell slots for lower level spells, but I would do it one for one, meaning if the mage ran out of 1st level slots for Magic-Missile and wanted to burn a 3rd level spell slot for another casting, fine but it still uses the full 3rd level spell slot (or 3 spell levels in this case)... possible, but wasteful for the mage.

[Dimirag]

I was thinking on using a point system but for "spell learning", this means a MU first need to acquire the spell, then transcribe it to his/her spellbook, and then he/she can learn it.
If not learn a spell must be prepared directly from the spellbook, but once studied the MU can prepare it off of his mind.

The points would probably be base on the INT valor (not the mod).

On the other hand, if the spellbook contains the spells in a magical comprised form I would think a way of allowing casting directly from it, but would limit it to lesser utility spells, probably charging some material costs and making a roll...