It's the simplest of the spellcasting, but I feel like it's robust besides and that's what makes Mystic Knowledge my personal favorite. Also because when going to try and make a core-Wizard I just ended up making a Stand-User.
Mystical Knowledge
(currently on 33.1 in the main book)
(Features kind of work like class templates in GLoG, except they often are less impactful since you can have nearly double the normal amount. That and you're liable to lose them with injuries / mutations. Certain Features that are powerful or have more options- every single form of spellcasting I've currently written for instance- you can re-take to get more powerful in).
With Mystical Knowledge: I wanted to make something versatile and reliable, but slow. The classic "wizard charging up a big spell from behind the big wall of enemies" vibe. So: MK has to charge up a meter. Think of it like a fighting game: you always start with an empty special meter, and have to build it up to do the cool thing.
- In Initiative: the charge-up time drastically reduces the effectiveness of spells in an active combat scenario. It's rarely "time to start blasting" a nonstop wizard train. Combats often don't even last that long for getting the big spell off.
- Out of Initiative... feels a little forced but I don't have a better solution? Really though: it means if something unexpected happens that you're boned. But if you have time to plan and your party can afford to spend extra time sitting in the dungeon for you to do your thing: you're great at unique problem solving.
- I run Initiatives with a sort of FILO thing- where faster characters can dynamically interrupt slower characters. So, unless your character has great stats, there's also the chance an enemy can mess up your spell easily after all the work to charge it.
In exchange for always being on tap: you are also forced to have a Word specialization, and thus drastically limit your spell options. (In the rules I list that players can select their one Word; in practice I usually have it decided based upon how MK was acquired, to avoid "optimal" picks. e.g. you learned magic from the Pyromancers? you can only [Burn] things).
But since you can learn as many Words as you want from the other category: from limitations comes creativity.
In one of my campaigns for example: one of my players could only cast spells which affect [Garments]. At first: woe be them if anything dangerous wasn't wearing clothes. But they worked to acquire specialized outfits of different useful materials, and managed to acquire Words like [Elongate] and [Entangle]. Despite being dealt a "bad hand," they acquired strength through understanding.
Really the limitation and the weirdos it makes are what I'm fond of. Your classic "I'm the Snake Wizard" scenarios or the guy whose only power is shrinking stuff enabling shenanigans.
It also leads to a natural curve of more Words, more versatility, better rounded spellcasting. Take for example a [Snake] Wizard. Perhaps at first they're pretty limited since they can only do things like [Charm] [Snake]. But eventually their dungeoneering keeps getting better as they can do stuff like [Enlarge] [Snake] to make bridges, [Summon] [Snake], [Explode] [Snake]...
Which brings us to acquiring Words.
Since Mystical Knowledge can acquire so many damn Words, it learns new Words through the most generic form: spell research or acquiring it through loot. Both are perfectly good, nothing wrong with classical motivations.
Close to the release of this first draft, I also tacked on an added risk / reward method of learning Words by getting hit by them. To be useful your character (usually) has to be on the squishier / slower end, upping the risk and giving you something to do while charging your juice. It can be cool when it's the spontaneous AW SHIT turnaround moment, but it can also be fun when the party goes out of their way to subject their wizard to danger to try and do something cool. Even more fun when things go awry.
I'm glad I'm doing this- I think it's going to help drastically when cutting down the chaff of the first draft. Stay tuned for the following spellcasters whenever I get to dissecting them:
- knockoff Gandalf casting spells on whole armies
- Furries, Greek Demigods, Dracula- all the same really
- an adaptation of Ten Foot Polemic's Cleric
- going insane for fun and profit
- the anime tradition of saving your strongest techniques late into a fight
- overly complicated Familiars
- foolish samurai wielding magic swords
OR IF YOU CAN'T WAIT: you can just download a copy of the rules, this first draft has already been out for like a year. There's also an even more experimental draft of like seven more of these things I shared recently
No comments:
Post a Comment