Alternative Magic Systems for B

[Kenneth Gauck]

>Ahhh, trust the players....


I was of course refering to the mid-adventure calculations of damage to
armor, spell points, how much food everyone has, every last piece of
equipment (esp charms and herbs), money, blood powers, and so forth.

I keep track of hp's, exp's, and proficencies

bookeeping between adventures is just part of the job. But if I was
required to account for all of the above during an adventure, every action
would take forever. Players know their own bookeeping needs better than I
do, and my players have often cought penalties I missed imposing. Its
reassuring when a player who you thought was down to a few hps declares
himself unconcious.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

[Sindre Berg]

Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> >Ahhh, trust the players....
>
> I was of course refering to the mid-adventure calculations of damage
> to
> armor, spell points, how much food everyone has, every last piece of
> equipment (esp charms and herbs), money, blood powers, and so forth.
>
> I keep track of hp's, exp's, and proficencies
>
> bookeeping between adventures is just part of the job. But if I was
> required to account for all of the above during an adventure, every
> action
> would take forever. Players know their own bookeeping needs better
> than I
> do, and my players have often cought penalties I missed imposing. Its
>
> reassuring when a player who you thought was down to a few hps
> declares
> himself unconcious.
>
> Kenneth Gauck
> c558382@earthlink.net
>
> *********************
> ************************************************** ***
> To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the
> line
> About the hp's and bookeeping, our DM had a other system... He kept the
hp's secret through the entire adventure, so as to keep us players more
on our toes...It helped us make more "realistic" choices..."How hard did
the monster hit us ? Very hard, your arm almost fell off..." It might
be an idea to try for some DM's though it puts more bookeeping work on
the DM..

- --
Sindre

Take a look at my homepage and Birthright PBMG at:

www.uio.no/~sindrejb

[Tim Nutting]

> I was of course refering to the mid-adventure calculations of damage to
> armor, spell points, how much food everyone has, every last piece of
> equipment (esp charms and herbs), money, blood powers, and so forth.


:-)

Yah, I know.

If they don't know the rules, the game doesn't run. Unfortunately, that's
Pandora's Box, because once the argumentative ones get hold of the rules...
well.

Oh yeah. Friends, I know I'm bickering about rules lawyering, but I'm not
asking for advice on how to fix it. Thanx anyway. ;-)

Tim Nutting.

[Jan Arnoldus]

At 18:44 30-10-98 -0600, you wrote:
>Greetings all,
> I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, and am considering
>trying to play up the "different nature" of magic in Aebrynnis. Does
>anyone use the alternative magic systems outlined in the Player's
>Option: Spells & Magic book?

Here's a repost of the system I'm using. I had posted it just before the
great GS debate and I guess it was kind of snowed under.

*******
Together with a player of mine we just have worked out the spellpoints system
according to S&M (the variants we wanted to use).

We decided on the defiler/preserver for the mages as they draw their magic
from the land.
With the following system.

Wizard spellpoints
Non-blooded mages draw 4 + 1/level per round
Blooded mages draw 8 + 1/level per round
Source-holding mages draw 8 + (1+sm)/level per round
sm = Source-modifier = Square Root of the source level of the source (if
any) they hold
in the province their in. (round fractions down)
Sielehr stones do count towards sourcelevels, leylines do not.
Rumour has it that mages with an Azrai-derivation and Awnsheglien know how
to defile the lands to extract even more power in a short time.

for example
Rheulaan Greencloak 20th level M-U has a source 9 in berhagen and a source 7
in unbraustadt
he draws 8 + [1+sqrt(9)]*20=88 in berhagen
and 8 + [1+sqrt(7)]*20=68 in unbraustadt
So the magic numbers for sourceholdings are 1, 4, 9

We decided on the channeler for the priests as they are the conduits of the
power of their god. With the following system.

Priest spellpoints
Non-blooded priests use the normal rules
Blooded priests can add 1 to their level for determination of the
fatigue effects
of their casting.
Temple Holding priests can add the level of their temple holdings in the
province (if any)
to their level for determination of the fatigue
effects of their
casting. This is added to the +1 they already have


Bard spellpoints are resolved as per the rules for mages
Paladin & Ranger spellpoints are resolved as per the rules for priests

We feel that this system provides a good "Birthright"-feeling to the S&M
magic rules.
There is an advantage for the blooded in recognition of their divine ancestry.
Furthermore the regents have an advantage when they are on their home turf.
This in recognition of the powerbase they have established.
The net effect of these rules should inspire PC's to first built their own
powerbase and
try to diminish that of their opponents before the direct confrontation.
Thus making players play before they fight.

Any comments are welcome, Tony Lemmers & Jan Arnoldus

"May the silver light of the sacred Moon "You don't control
Mebhaighl you just
protect you from the Shadow World experience it"
and lead you to secret sources of power." quote attributed to Daegandal

[Craig Greeson]

Jan Arnoldus wrote:
> Together with a player of mine we just have worked out the spellpoints system
> according to S&M (the variants we wanted to use).
>
> We decided on the defiler/preserver for the mages as they draw their magic
> from the land.
> With the following system.
>
> Wizard spellpoints
> Non-blooded mages draw 4 + 1/level per round
> Blooded mages draw 8 + 1/level per round
> Source-holding mages draw 8 + (1+sm)/level per round
> sm = Source-modifier = Square Root of the source level of the source (if
> any) they hold in the province their in. (round fractions down)
> Sielehr stones do count towards sourcelevels, leylines do not.
> Rumour has it that mages with an Azrai-derivation and Awnsheglien know how
> to defile the lands to extract even more power in a short time.

I like Jan's idea of source-holding mages being able to draw more mebhaighl
in areas where they control sources. This seems very logical, but I hadn't
thought of it before. They are very much in tune with the magical
potential of that particular area, so it makes sense they should have
enhanced power there. I am going to adopt this IMC. It still makes sense
to me that non-blooded mages have to cast spells using their own energy,
not the mebhaighl that surrounds them. For this reason, I think I'm still
going to use the Channeller rules for non-blooded mages. This also helps
to make the 2 classes very different.

Regards
Craig

[Kenneth Gauck]

In my campaign, priest are all channellers and all priest spells are
automatically free magicks. *However,* the spell list I provide characters
is complicated and one of the effects is to compensate for the free magick
access to spells. Here is how it works.

Dieties have aspects. For example, Avani is the godess of the Sun, goddess
of Reason, goddess of Magic, and goddess of the Khinasi people. Each of
these aspects is worshiped differently by her priests, and their doctrines
are slighlty different. Hence their spell choices are not identical.

Compare the stated "generic" priest of Avani with the following:
Priest of Sun
req Profeciency- Calendrics
Spheres: Major- normal (All, Elemental [fire], Protection, Sun, Thought);
less one level (Divination, Healing,); less two levels (Numbers)
Minor- normal (creation) less one level (charm) less two levels(travelers)

So at first level the priest can only cast from all, elemental [fire],
protection, sun, thought, creation.

When the priest can cast second level spells, the gain access to divination,
healing, and charm, but these spells are treated as being one level higher
than normal. So "cure light wounds" is a second level spell for priests of
Avani.

Each sect within Avani temples is different, and priests of the sun and
priests of reason are different. Not surprsingly, the aspect of Patron of
the Khinasi includes more emphasis on defence and combat.

To make things easy I print a unique spell list for every PC priest, and for
major villians.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net