Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Kurt Wiegel]

Hey all

Has anyone ever done a magic subsystem in which Vigor and exhaustion rules have been used as a model for "channeling" magic? Not necessarially linking The magic skill to vigor, but somehting where the PC can "Overchannel" or push himself to exhaustion, outside of the Soul Drain edge.

Kurt

[kronovan]

I haven't created such a subsystem, but I've GM'd the one that exists in Beasts & Barbarians. In that setting a Sorcerer can self inflict 1 wound to receive 2 power points or a +1 bonus to their Sorcery skill roll. The wound gets applied after the sorcery roll. The wound can only be healed with natural healing though, so its a risky proposition at best.

[Sushi]

I have a "no power points" variant that does something like this. You can read about it here (scroll down to the "Alternate Power Points (Power Die)" heading).

Basically, players get a "power die" instead of power points that starts at d4. They can increase the power die at the same rate as they can buy more power points (so once per rank). Whenever someone casts a spell, they roll power die + vigor against a TN of 3+[Spell PP cost]. If they fail, they take a level of fatigue.

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[shinryu]

Interface Zero handles this interestingly, though I've actually moved away from it for a couple of reason; essentially you have a power stat, and you need to roll better than 4 + (Spell Cost - Power) or you take a level of fatigue.

How I've been rolling for Shadowrun, I give the characters a Magic stat, and if the spellcasting die is less than the cost of the power, they take a level of fatigue. If the power is over the magic stat and they roll under its cost, then it's backlash time.

[kronovan]

[UmbraLux]

[shinryu]

It occurred to me, if you wanted to keep the Power Points system, you could use the (1/2 of, 1/2 of +2) Vigor die type as a kind of threshold system for exhaustion. If you use more power points than the the threshold, you gain a level of Fatigue, till you pass out. So, say, with a Vigor of D6 and using 1/2 + 2:

Cast Armor, 3 bolts: Hit threshold.
Next spell: -1 Fatigue.
Next 5 points of spells: -2 Fatigue.
Cast another 5 points: Pass out.

Or, for super nastiness to your wizards, the points over threshold could represent an accumulating strain threshold, such that once you hit the threshold, every point over increases your chances of exploding your head (like super sorcery, sort of:) Using the same threshold as above:

First 5 points: No problem
Cast a 3 point spell: Now you're at 8. 8-5 = 3, so a 3 or less on the Spellcasting die results in unfortunate occurences.
Cast yet another 3 point spell: Now you're up to 11, so it's a 6 or less. Good luck.

The Wizard edge is incredibly valuable in both cases, but much more so in the latter.

[Nimblegrund]

A little bit of thread necromancy, but what if you treated power points as a bonus to your vigor check to avoid being fatigued from casting spells?

At first, you could ignore the roll because you had +4 power points and made the roll automatically. But every time you cast a spell, you reduce your power points by one.

as you get lower, eventually you have to start making your vigor rolls. Eventually you run out, but this doesnt stop you from continuing to cast. If you wanted, you could even institute negative power points, as you are starting to draw on your own physical reserves to power your magic. These negative power points don't affect any other types of vigor rolls, just spellcasting ones. Its when you start taking those fatigue penalties is when it gets to be a problem.

Because of the added possible utility, you could probably stand to lower the starting number of power points so you aren't so flush all of the time, and to make up for the fact that now more vigor = more spells.

Not playtested, but just an idea.

[ValhallaGH]