>I've made a couple of changes and clarifications as house rules for my game which I felt rather thuroughly patched most of the problems I had with 4e Magic. (not all, but most). These came about after players in my game cast Essential Wood on a shield, and got a critical success. I went and re-read the spell description to think up a suitable critical effect, and nearly fell off my chair when I found out all the fantastic stuff it does permenantly at an incredibly low cost. I was honestly stuck for anything BETTER to happen. > > Rule 1, which was stolen from someone on GURPSNet or the forums: any spell which creates or "ennobles" matter is temporary - ennobling includes Essentialising, and making it more durable/solid/immediately useful to adventurers. Earth to Stone ennobles matter, Stone to Earth does not. >Any currently Permanent or Instant spells instead have a duration of 1 hour, which can be maintained at half casting cost. This lets wizards create stone walls, essential water, essential wood, etc and have it useful both over the duration of a short combat encounter, and longer roleplay type encounters, without lasting for long enough to entirely substitute for regular matter. This temporary matter can be dispelled, and vanishes when taken into a no-mana zone. >
Hi Emily, That is the kind of houserules I was thinking about ;) What I liked about Kromm's innovation regarding spell duration types is the fact that you essentially have 4 different types of spells for each of the spells given in the game. Enchantments are one type of casting - and those make the magical effects permanent. Ongoing spells are spells that require energy to maintain over a period of time. This is what you've done with some of the spells in question. If a spell is in operation that is on-going, it counts against your ability to cast new spells. Instant spells are those that produce an effect, and are then done. These effects may not be dispelled with dispell magic. Permanent spells are those spells that remain in operation and do not require spell energy to continue. They can also be dispelled with dispell magic. Now look at the effects of any kind of Essential "Item". If you were to increase their cost to make them "permanent", the original spell which may have been ongoing initially, can be made to be less "intrusive" on the spell caster's concentration and left in a self-maintenance mode. If you want to make it "permanent" - then it is in effect, as the original spell description was written. For say, 10 times the cost of an ongoing spell, you can make it permanent (as an example). A crit success with an ongoing spell could, instead of making it cost less energy to cast, or making it 2 to 3 times more effective - you can rule that a crit success on an ongoing spell turns it into a permanent spell type. A crit success on a Permanent spell type could convert it into what is called a spontaneous or wild enchantment. One thing I am considering the possibilty of is doing to SEEK EARTH what was done to SHAPESHIFT. As written, SHAPESHIFT requires a specific spell for each of the forms that a person might desire. Thus, to be able to shapeshift from Hawk to Wolf to Dog to Cow to Deer to Bluebird, requires the mage to have learned 6 different spells. Why not do the same for SEEK EARTH? One spell for SEEK GOLD. One for SEEK TITANIUM, and so on? Now, mages can't go around finding every significant mine that exists within the area. It is the little stuff that needs some customization to help some GM's create a truly low tech environment without magic becoming "alternative tech". By the by, I recall that thread on FORUMS that broached the topic of changing the duration type for certain spells whereas before they lasted indefinitely. I had to wonder what your Forum name was <g>. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
