Hi all,
I’ve been slowly getting into the magic system with ICRPG, and I love the simplicity and malleability so far. One thing that I still haven’t fully understood though, is the choices of all the types of spells. Blood, curse, Elder, Fire, etc. all sound like very cool kinds of magic, but they almost seem very heavy on flavor rather than actual balance.
I know ICRPG is much more about streamlined rules and fun than balance, but I like to have a little bit more balance than what this seems like. The fire type, for instance. You can practically take any form of magic, and give it a flavor of fire and now it’s a ‘fire’ type. Want to teleport distances? do it through fire. Want to buff your sword? give it a fire enchantment. Want to set a rune trap? Explosions happen when a creature triggers it. My issue with this is that each type of magic doesn’t really seem to have it’s own identity. Any spell can be ‘flavored’ in ICRPG to be another kind. Maybe that’s a good thing in some aspects, but it doesn’t help define a character and what kinds of spells they cast.
I’m thinking about homebrewing part of the ICRPG magic rules to make the types of magic a little different, A thought I had, was to use the colors as found in the MTG card game. I used to play a lot, and always found they were incredibly flavorful, as well as having quite a lot of balance between them. It’s also been fairly easy to figure what color any spell should be, should I be thinking of converting spells from ICRPG core or from D&D spell lists.
I’ve come up with some initial rules and laid them out below. Please tell me what you guys think, am I crazy?!
Magic types: Take the 12 types of magic spells found in ICRPG and switch them out for White, Blue, Red, Green, and Black Magic.
Mastery: Mastery comes at the 9th level of a spell kind, rather than the 4th. As such, there are now 9 levels of spells as well. (10 levels including cantrips)
Cantrips: Count as 0 level spells, but with no COST when casting them successfully. They cannot be cast at a higher POWER level than 1.
Casting: Remains the same. Must meet the target in order to cast a spell. When successfully cast, sacrifice hit points equal to the spell level x the spell power.
POWER: The highest POWER a spell can be cast is still 4. This means that the most amount a character can spend on hit points in a single casting is 36 (4x9)
Converting from D&D spells: Conversion here should be fairly simple. The D&D spell would retain it’s level, and a comparable effect must be established. Damaging spells may be more complicated, but levels 1-4 should deal mostly with MAGIC damage and levels 5-9 deal with ULTIMATE damage. Cantrips should do WEAPON damage.
Assigning a magic color: This is mostly based on intuition and familiarity with the colors of MTG.
White should be the best at buffing/ protecting creatures. It should also dip into physical barriers and ‘divine’ spells
Blue should deal with illusion, time, water, and general fluidity.
Red should be the best color for damaging spells. Elemental spells and magic steeped in sheer raw power
Green should be the best color for conjuring and buffing. Any druidic type magic should be green.
Black is the domain of curses and debuffing enemies. It also dips into conjuring (undead) but not as good as green is.
If ever creating a spell, consider what color it should be. Is it a fireball spell? Well that should probably be red. But what if you wanted it to be a ‘divine light beam’ that damages enemies? It probably shouldn’t be as good as Red spells are at damaging, so maybe bump up the spell level by 1 or 2. What about a spell that heals people with the wonders of nature? Make it comparable to a white healing spell, but make it take longer/ occupy a higher spell level.
I’ve also thought about mixing colors into a single spell (like multi colored card). Thought that would be a fun idea for more ‘complicated’ spells, but not sure it’s necessary.
Let me know what you all think!
