JoeCarr28 wrote:... as it's written, high level magic-users come of worst in comparison to standard BFRPG. However, I think the restrictions could be fairly easily circumnavigated by the judicious availability of (high level) items that provide additional reserves of magic points or, as suggested by JtR, foci that increase the chance of casting certain spells. But, personally, I quite like the idea of the most powerful spells being both demanding and draining to cast. The pay-off of the system of course is that low-level magic-users get many more opportunities to cast.
Looking at the MU chart in the core rules, the two MUs are equal at 4th level, if the Basic Quest MU has an 18 INT. (4th level = 2 first & 2 second level spells = 18 MP.) So it's not
high levels; after 4th level, the Basic Quest MU is weaker. However, most MUs won't have an 18 INT. If you take a BQ MU w/ a 12 INT, he's equal to a 3rd level BF MU. So you're effectively reducing the MU to permanent 3rd or 4th level capabilities.
How's the BQ MU going to do a mid-level dungeon crawl? At 7th level, the BF MU has 3/2/2/1 spells, equal to 51 MP of spells, or almost three times the casting power of the most powerful BQ MU (which would be 54 MP) at any HD. And, the BF MU's spells never fail.
Even the 5th level BF MU has the equivalent of 27 MP available, half again the max possible BQ MU's capability. A BQ MU w/ 12 INT is really toast. Even if he has 10 HD, he can only cast 4 first level spells, or 2 second level spells, or 1 second and 2 first level spells, or a single 3rd level spell, in a day.
Also, since he would only get a single spell in a day if he decides to cast a 6th level spell, how does he plan to make it to the point he would need to use a 6th level spell? He can't cast any other spells on the way. Even if he makes it there, he fails 50% of the time (w/ INT 18 & casting skill 95%) in casting his big spell, and failure reduces his MP by a third; and that's the equivalent of a 20th level MU.
The Cleric would have similar problems, but since he has better HD, weapons, and armor, he won't have the trouble surviving that a MU would.
Maybe this is how you want to do it, but if not, some things that I might consider would be giving additional MP whenever a HD is gained and making the MU a secondary fighter like the Cleric w/ d6 HD and better weapons and armor. +3 MP / HD gained still leaves the BQ caster weaker, 7 HD w/ 18 INT = 36 MP where the BF MU has 51, but maybe that's where magic items pick up the slack.
JtR's suggestion about extra MP for reaching a certain level of casting skill would also be good, or instead of extra MP, maybe some kind of efficiency effect. For example, for any spell that the caster has a raw 50% chance of casting, the cost for success is only 2 MP / lvl. So at 60% casting skill, first level spells would only cost 2 MP for success. At 70% skill, 2nd level spells only cost 4 MP for success. Something like that. I haven't done the math on the idea, so I'm not sure how it works out, but doing this and the +3 MP / HD might balance the two MUs out better.
Of course, Solomoriah would say that BF spells are not designed for a point system, so the best way to approach this would be to redesign the spells to make them fit the point system.
JoeCarr28 wrote:The skill progression system as it's written simply reflects the d100 convention, although I understand what you're saying.
I guess by 'convention' you mean, 'how it is in RuneQuest'? I've never played it so I don't know. I can always house rule this.
I'm really interested in this project (or I wouldn't have done all that math!). I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
!). I've also used the opportunity to propose an alternative approach to magic. But apart from that, I've tried to be as efficient and sparing as possible with the changes and probably 95%+ of the existing Basic Fantasy rulebook is unaffected.