Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Evilgaz]

Howdy

Being an old fan of Earthdawn and Savage both, I got hold of the new Redbrick edition and was curious to note that they’ve gone for a power point system for magic – although there may be an alternative PP-less system in a future book. In the mean time however, one of the great things about ED (and there were many) when it first came out was that magicians could cast spells all day long without the need for PP, and I’d like to use a system like that. So, how would you do it?

I’m a fan of the Hellfrost mechanic with Siphoning and I’m sure there are many more out there, plus some ideas in the Deluxe rules.

Here’s the key bits we need to think about:

• Magic comes from Astral Space and needs to be fed through a Matrix or it could do Bad Things to your spellcaster.
  
• Raw Magic (avoiding a matrix )allows you to cast whatever you want, but could have a Terrible Price.
  
• Magicians are limited (maybe based on Rank) to how many Matrices they can have on the go. (i.e. you can know lots of spells, only have a few available to cast).
  
• Reweaving your Matrix to a different spell can be done easily with time, in the midst of a fight though there needs to be a way of doing this quickly (could simply be a Spellcasting roll, critical failure means you blank all your Matrices)
  
• There may be a way of casting spells you don’t know direct from a Grimoire – including casting spells from a higher Rank – how hard should this be?

So hit me with it groovers, what are your suggestions?

Cheers

Gaz
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[The Dread Polack]

My first though was that it could simply work very much the way it does in core Earthdawn.

First, I would have players spend edges on spell matrices. The more advanced matrices, if used, would be available at higher ranks. I think I might limit total matrices to 2 at novice, +1 per rank thereafter.

After that, characters would probably start with their Smarts die in total spells. The nice thing about ED spells is that their availability in combat is limited by your matrices (or your willingness to use raw magic), and, IMO, ED spells are generally more limited by their trappings than SW powers. Because of that, in theory, I don't feel bad letting characters have more spells than a regular SW character would. Gaining new spells might be 2 spells per advance spent, which could be combined with raising low skills.

Like core ED, character can spend time out of combat to automatically realign their matrices, but in combat, will have to make a skill roll to do so. Once they're locked into a matrix, you can use them without risk.

My next question, though, is whether they should require thread weaving in the same way they do in ED. One of the frustrating things about casting in ED is that it can take quite a while to ready a spell for casting. This is one of the system's balancing factors, and has worked out pretty well for ED players for decades, but is the opposite of Fast! Here's two ideas:

1) Assign a thread weaving difficulty and number of threads for each spell and run it just like you do in Core ED.

2) Simplify it a little. Spells either require a thread, or not. Thread weaving difficulties might all be the same. Spells with threads require at least one round of preparation in which a thread is successfully woven, or they are immediately available if you get a raise.

I'd have to playtest it to know for sure.

[Evilgaz]

[The Dread Polack]

[Trilan]

I don't think the threadweaving skill adds enough to the setting to be used every casting, I had pondered the idea of using it as a kind of ritual casting however. You can spend an action with threadweaving to enhance the spells pattern, each success and raise giving a +1 to the next eventual casting roll.

What I was thinking of in terms of Matrixes is that the number of powers from the Arcane Background become the number of spell matrixes you have available, and the number of threads (power points) you have is the limit on the spells that can be stored in the matrixes. When you store a spell with variable threads in the matrix you have to determine how many you want to use in casting.

So a novice elementalist with 10 threads and 3 matrixes could store Earth Darts (3 darts), Flame Weapon, and Crunch Climb (with the remaining 5 threads). Any other castings until the matrixes are reattuned are considered raw magic.

Under that scheme the New Power edge would become a new matrix, allowing you to protect another spell, and Enhanced Matrix increases the number of threads you can store across the matrixes.

[The Dread Polack]

[UmbraLux]