Do you use the orignal magic system when you have ICRPG Magic?

question
#1

My copy of the ICRPG Magic book will [probably arrive tomorrow, but I still feel like I don’t have a sense if it will supersede the basic magic system (which I like), or can be run in parallel. And yes-I get it. It’s my choice, my game and I can do what I want. And I SHALL! First, though, I’m interested in a little feedback from the community. What do folk do-magic, Magic, or both?

#2

I haven’t seen anyone run a CORE caster, and I initially made a CORE priest, but quickly changed to MAGIC, as it just gave me more options.
I think MAGIC is a no brainer.

#3

Personally, I only use MAGIC and my own book. It is a better system for me and my group.

#4

I mainly play with my family and friends that are new to TTRPGs so I actually use the core magic a lot of the time for simplicity sake. It’s simpler and the players like not losing HP unless it’s a failed cast or something.

Now if we have more experienced players or just a very high magic world, then I use MAGIC book.

#5

I do the exact same thing. When i am running my home games with friends and family i use Core magic, but offer MAGIC characters if they want… but as of yet no one has chosen to make a MAGIC , though they are mostly casual players who only play when i offer to run a game.

In my Nobility of the Rope game though I had my first MAGIC player with Jourdemayne, so having run both separately I can say they both will flow very well in the game.

As for mixing them, I don’t see why not.I might make the benefit of choosing CORE magic be that the spells have no cost to cast, but “weaker” magic that can’t be powered up. Whereas the MAGIC caster has access to more powerful spells, but at a cost. I see it as the difference between a dabbler in magic and a specialist.

#6

XI’ve used both Core magic and Magic extensively across multiple games and campaigns. It really comes down to how much complexity you want for magic. I’ve found both to be awesome at the table, but each style brings a different type of play.

Core magic is very straightforward and fast. It lets casters fire off spells just as easily as a fighter swings a sword. Spellburn is an awesome take on the idea of spell slots and similar, but can be a power hindrance or penalty to magic-users. I’ve played plenty of games that cut spellburn out completely and it was still great.

Magic adds a layer of complexity to spellcasting that a lot of people really enjoy. The complexity allows magic users to wield impressive power at the cost of health and makes magic users balance their spellcasting. It becomes a dance of life and “phenomenal cosmic power” that really emphasizes the glass canon style. Big magic output balanced by being dropped by the slightest hit.

I’m feeling like this probably isn’t much help because I’m just reemphasizing the “play what works best for your group” approach. My bad, dude.

In closing I’ll just say that OP is a myth and balance is for chumps. Haha. Just have fun and may your dice roll high!

#7

I run a hacked together my own homebrew Magic from a couple different sources.

All spells require two rolls of a d20. First roll is against the room Target, second roll is to determine the effect of the spell.

Player announces they are casting a spell and what success looks like (the opposite effect would be a failure). They then roll a d20 against the Target. Then they roll a d20 for the effect. Any damage single target damage is scaled to the ‘Magic’ d8 die.

Magic is wild and a gamble with every cast. Don’t roll low.

#8

I just started but I like they magic works in ICRPG it’s very simple and easy to make it work how you want. I really like the item system in ICRPG and since I play with my kids I incorporated that into the magic system. From what I picked up on pages 45 and 46 is there are two types of magic. Wis based which players just know and don’t need items for and Int based which requires items. So I set up two types of items for my players. Magic scrolls so that players can learn and just know wisdom based spells and magic stones (very much based on materia from FF7) that players can equip and use intelligence based magic. These stones can be attached to weapons or armor by a very trained arcane blacksmith which then applies the spell of that stone to the weapon. So if you can afford the blacksmith and the materials you can have a magic sword that casts fireball. You may also find magic weapons that already have these stones applied. Unlike FF7 you can’t just equip magic stones to weapons. Its either built in or it isn’t.

So far it’s worked well. Stones limits a players spell list because you can only carry 10 items. You could limit it further by saying you can carry up to ten but you can only equip five. Then find ways they can up the equip amount later.

I just have to be picky about which spells appear in magic scrolls. Once they learn the spell they don’t have to carry an item for it. This is also the advantage of having magic weapons. The magic fireball casting sword counts as one item. A sword and a fireball stone counts as two. So there’s advantages in combining items and you can work this into the characters leveling.

One more part of this. When I hand over a magic stone I give them a card with the spell written in rune. My kids can’t read it so they don’t know what it is. They have to cast it or have it identified to know what it is. I like having the mystery to these magic stones as they get them. The spell written in rune is more for me so I can remember what the spell was when they go to cast it.

#9

Could you elaborate on this a bit more, with maybe an example or two? I’m having trouble understanding how you interpret the effect/effort with the second roll. It sounds interesting.

#10

Sure! Keep in mind, the goal of this Frankenstein’ed system is to keep the action at the table moving. I wanted the casting of the spell to take the same table time as a fighter attacking with his sword.

I got the basis of this idea from DungeonCraft YouTube video were he talks about the book XDM: Extreme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy Hickman. I just home-brewed it to fit ICRPG mechanics and keep the table turns moving as smoothly as possible.

There are two types of spells: Those that effect hit points (damage and healing), and those that change the world somehow (effect light, time, temperature, summon a creature, etc).

Hit point spells (those that damage or heal) are handled like this: Basic spells can range in effect from 1 to 8 points. Medium spells can range from 1 to 16, and crazy high spells could range 1 to 32 points of damage/effect. The player rolls a d20 and we determine where that result would align with the level of spell they cast.

Ex: You succeed on your casting a basic spell and then rolled a 10 on the 2nd d20? Nice! You did 4+spell effort points of damage. Casting a medium spell and rolled another 10? Sweet! You did 8+spell effort points of damage. Casting a high level spell and rolled another 10? Wicked! You did 16+spell effort points of damage!

This keeps the dice used the same, the turns moving, and scales infinitely.

For spells that effect everything else, scale the result of the 2nd d20 role. Keep in mind, a “1” would only represent the function of the spell, where a “20” would represent the best possible version of that spell being cast.

Ex: “I want to summon a really nice cloak!” Succeeds the target attempt. Then rolls a:
20! Nicest cloak you can ever imagine now lavishly wraps around your shoulders!
15! Respectable cloak appears upon you.
10! Average and functional cloak that will work well for adventuring.
5! Thread-worn cloak hangs off you will work but not quite the luxury you wanted.
1! Dog blanket appears on your shoulders. Are those fleas?

#11

Thank you every one. Probably I’ll use the new Magic system and keep the original for the “hedge wizard” types. Because it amuses me that a power set that includes being able to drop a giant rock on a target could be dismissed as ‘not real magic’ by a group that ought to know better.

#12

I like this system. Also a big fan of Dungeon Craft. Whats always confused me about it though is where the point values come in with damage or healing spells. Obviously it depends on the d20 but how does the normal D8 come into play or does it come into play at all?

In my head it goes one of two ways. No d8 at all and a D20 is…
20! Full 8 damage
15! 6 damage
10! 4 damage
5! 2 damage
1! 1 damage

Or you roll a d20 and a D8 and go…
20! +4
15! +3
10!+ 2
5! +1
1! +0

That seems to add a lot of extra math though. How do you do it?

#13

I use the first example. I scale the d20 into whatever the damage or healing range range is (usually 1 to 8), and then add the modifier. So a 20! would be “8 + Spell Effort”. A 15! would be “6 +Spell Effort” etc.

However, after thinking about it longer, there is no reason you couldn’t use a d8 instead of the 2nd d20 to describe the spell effect. This saves any mental math on calculating healing/damage with spell effort. I’m still pondering how the spell effort would effect the 2nd roll. If you have any thoughts I would love to hear them.

Random Thought:
I like to think of spell casting like getting your friend to recognize a song you know. In this example, you both heard the song last week. You start humming the melody, hoping it will trigger something in their memory. To successfully cast a spell, you need to know and accurately hum enough of the melody for your friend to remember and start humming along. If you cast the spell bad, they look at you like you are crazy and laugh, swearing the have never heard that song in their life! If you are successful, you start humming and start humming along too. If you can hum the song perfectly (Nat-20!), the melody gets stuck in their head the rest of the day!

Now for the Effort. Maybe they know the melody, and are humming away, but can’t recall any of the lyrics (this would be succeeding on the attempt and rolling an effort of “1”). Sometimes you roll a 10 on a 10 target, they barely recall the song but they do recall it. Then you start singing the lyrics (Rolling max effort) and they start singing at the top of their lungs and can’t stop/won’t stop! LOL

#14

I love the analogy. It makes a lot of sense. I wondered about the modifiers and damage/healing too. The book seemed to say you added it to the initial roll but didnt say if you added it to damage/healing. Its probably DMs prefference. I like the idea cause it adds a minimum. It sucks to get 19 healing roll then roll a 1 on the d8. If you add modifiers and they have +2 wisdom you at least get a 3. Things like the spell book or other items can add more to that.

I like the idea of scaling magic but I’ve struggled to figure out a simple method. I had thought using a scale for how far above the AC the d20 rolled but that got into some tedious math. I wonder about scaling additions to the roll like below. I may try this method.

1-2 +1
3-4 +2
5-6 +3
7-8 +4

So higher rolls maximize the effect meaning the player was able to remember the song better and it had a more powerful effect.

#15

my current group loved the options that magic gave but weren’t fans of the cost of hp to cast spells, so we are running with cost being the spellburn mechanic, level + power is the amount of ticks you add to your spellburn tracker, but i also have items that increase the timer-die for the magic users (from a d4 to a d6, etc) casting a second level spell at power two maxes out a 4-point timer, but if you exceed your timer, (casting a level 2 spell at power three, you cant cast until the amount you exceeded the tracer by + what you roll for your timer die
ex; (5 ticks on a 4 track-timer = 1 extra turn)