Hyborian Art

[Supplement Four]

I'm still new to d20 Conan. My campaign I started last year was interrupted by Hurricane Ike. Now that my players have their houses back together, I'm looking at starting the game again.

I still haven't played with the magic system. I need to give it a good read. From my cursory examination, though, magic is pretty simple, no?





Everybody has power points.

It takes power points to cast a spell.

In order to cast a spell, one needs training (feat), a spell (plus components), and power points. If you have those three things, you can cast magic in the Conan rpg.

Power points can be increased in various ways as discussed in the book.





That's pretty much the gist, correct?

Am I missing any large part of it?

 

[Malcadon]

From my cursory examination, though, magic is pretty simple, no?

Well, it not like D&D. There are a number of side rules that are attached to Sorcerers. A Sorcerer is basically a Scholar, (or Temptress) who can cast spells. They have rules for success, rituals, sacrifice, corruption, insanity, obsession, war of the souls, and so on. It good to read the Scholar class description first, then read the Sorcery Chapter soon after.

Everybody has power points.

It takes power points to cast a spell.

In order to cast a spell, one needs training (feat), a spell (plus components), and power points. If you have those three things, you can cast magic in the Conan rpg.

Power points can be increased in various ways as discussed in the book.

The amount of PP you start of with is small, and the amount you gain as you gain levels are slight. You can build up your reserves beyond your base score with Sacrifices or Power Rituals - this upper limit increases exponentially as you gain levels (PPx2 at 1st level, PPx5 at 20th level). Its usually not good to cast spells that are too expensive to cast on your own, because powerful spells - the ones with the asterisks next to their names - can unleash all hell if cast too often - even by other Sorcerers that not even near by. If you what to build your base score, you can take up an Obsession. Such a rule is more of a plot-based wager.

If you're not a Scholar, you can only learn magic with the Dabbler feat (the Temptress class can learn spells as one of her Secret Arts class ability). You get a small number of PP, and you can only cast a spell once a month or something. Oddly enough the spell system works like a chain of feats - each one has a set of requirements, usually the base spell (the one you ger for free when you learn a New Sorcery Style) and Base Magic Attack Bonus that is based on level. There was issues folks had with the limitations and complexity of the messy "feat tree" spell system. The guy that made The Spider God's Bride book also made some houserules that simplify the rules out a lot - under the the Savant class - I highly recommend it.

That's pretty much the gist, correct?

Am I missing any large part of it?

One thing important to note, it that - unlike the D&D Magic-users/Wizards/Whatever - Sorcerers are feared by normal people. They have to power to unleash all sorts of eldrich horrors on people!

An odd thing some people overlook with the Scholar class is that spellcasting is completely optional - you can go to level 20 without ever learning a single Sorcery Style! In such a case, the Scholar takes bonus feats and skill points in place of magic, and they are also exempt from the usual rules attached to Sorcerers - corruption, insanity and such.

 

[Ichabod]

I still haven't played with the magic system. I need to give it a good read. From my cursory examination, though, magic is pretty simple, no?

It's not particularly complex compared to other games, but there are a lot of rules for sorcerers beyond just casting spells, so it's complex in comparison to a lot of other rules in Conan.

Everybody has power points.

Nope. You only get PP if something says you do. All scholars, by my reading, get PP even if the character never learns a sorcery style. Having PP, by the way, is incredibly useful for acting as a magic battery for sorcerers.

It takes power points to cast a spell.

There's a spell that costs 0 PP, but yes.

In order to cast a spell, one needs training (feat), a spell (plus components), and power points. If you have those three things, you can cast magic in the Conan rpg.

Nope. While Dabbler enables any character to become a sorcerer, the usual way to cast spells is to know one or more sorcery styles (knowing a style gives the basic spell of the style and may give a defensive blast) and to know one or more of the spells in that style, to have the components, and to have enough PP to cast the spell.

What should be by far the most common way to do sorcery is to have levels in scholar.

I don't recall off the top of my head if any book has rules for it, but it's very in flavor for those who don't know a spell or any spells to be able to cast spells from tomes, with the help of demons/gods, etc.

Power points can be increased in various ways as discussed in the book.

I'm not sure what the focus on PP is about. There are some nonobvious things about PP, like remembering how many you get for sacrifices and the "rule of success" cost reductions (which, btw, I don't understand*), but the basic mechanic of spending PP to pay for spells is reasonably straightforward.

* Really, I don't understand when the cost reduction kicks in. There are a bunch of spells with no target, so do you get to cast these autosuccess spells for half cost? Was the intent that only spells that are opposed in some way get the cost reduction?

That's pretty much the gist, correct?

Am I missing any large part of it?

The gist of how to cast a spell? ... Know the spell, take an action to cast it, pay for it is kind of the gist.

Being an effective sorcerer, though, is tricky. A lot of spells are useless to PCs because they are so expensive. A lot of spells (hypnotism style comes to mind) require being clever to get much out of casting.

There are a number of things to keep track of with sorcerers from how any sorcerer can instantly recognize another and attempt to learn about Corruption and current PP levels to the lack of timing rules for defensive blasts (we ruled that DBs happen whenever it is best for the sorcerer) to the rule of success which nobody in our campaign has ever remembered to apply to obsession to power draining (doing Wisdom damage to PCs is common for our PC sorcerers; always drain before sacrificing as they go off two different tracks) to everything else that makes sorcery one of the more difficult things to understand in the rules.

 

[Malcadon]

I don't recall off the top of my head if any book has rules for it, but it's very in flavor for those who don't know a spell or any spells to be able to cast spells from tomes, with the help of demons/gods, etc.

Having a Demonic Pact or Lay Priest background would help.

I'm not sure what the focus on PP is about. There are some nonobvious things about PP, like remembering how many you get for sacrifices and the "rule of success" cost reductions (which, btw, I don't understand*), but the basic mechanic of spending PP to pay for spells is reasonably straightforward.

* Really, I don't understand when the cost reduction kicks in. There are a bunch of spells with no target, so do you get to cast these autosuccess spells for half cost? Was the intent that only spells that are opposed in some way get the cost reduction?

If you use a spell to defeat someone (of even morph them), recasting the spell cost half (round up) then when you last payed for if. So, if you successfully cast Draw Forth the Heart for 7 PP, you only need to spend 4 PP to recast it on another poor sod. After that, it would cost 2 PP, and then it would sat at 1 PP (the lowest it can go). As long as you have the 7 PP to start with, you can keep this up for as long as you have victims - seeing how this spell counts as an instant 15-minutes of the Tormented Sacrifice feat! That is by far the most gruesome power-ups imaginable! :twisted:

 

[David St-Michel]

Note : The Rule of Success also works if the sorceror happends to kill someone in regular combat as well. So your sorceror could also slit some poor peasant's throat, THEN start pulling hearts out instantly.

 

[Ichabod]

I'm not sure what the focus on PP is about. There are some nonobvious things about PP, like remembering how many you get for sacrifices and the "rule of success" cost reductions (which, btw, I don't understand*), but the basic mechanic of spending PP to pay for spells is reasonably straightforward.

* Really, I don't understand when the cost reduction kicks in. There are a bunch of spells with no target, so do you get to cast these autosuccess spells for half cost? Was the intent that only spells that are opposed in some way get the cost reduction?

If you use a spell to defeat someone (of even morph them), recasting the spell cost half (round up) then when you last payed for if. So, if you successfully cast Draw Forth the Heart for 7 PP, you only need to spend 4 PP to recast it on another poor sod. After that, it would cost 2 PP, and then it would sat at 1 PP (the lowest it can go). As long as you have the 7 PP to start with, you can keep this up for as long as you have victims - seeing how this spell counts as an instant 15-minutes of the Tormented Sacrifice feat! That is by far the most gruesome power-ups imaginable! :twisted:

That's not what the book (2e) says.

"Furthermore, the rule of success makes it far easier for a sorcerer to repeat a successful spell. If he ever casts a spell that succeeds in all that it was intended to do, he may cast the same spell the following round at half the previous Power Point cost (rounded down) for the spell. ...
...
Both the magic attack bonus and the reduced Power Point cost from the Rule of Success can apply simultaneously, if applicable."

Of course, it also explains quite clearly when this rule applies (I just never bothered to read the paragraph).

"The Game Master always has the final say as to whether a particular spell succeeds sufficiently well to grant this special bonus."

So, there you have it: you get a cost break on any spell your GM feels like you deserve to get a cost break on. How illuminating. I'd imagine for some people who dwell on the example, they will interpret it narrowly to cover only those cases when you do something incapacitating to someone. I'd imagine other people would just take the text as written and apply it to every spell there is, so you start halving the cost of Wards by Will and other impossible to fail spells.

I would imagine some reasonable approach is to say it only applies to spells that have some chance of failure.

Certainly makes cursing people much more efficient (for a PC) as otherwise the curse spells are awful wastes of PPs. Well, not really as it would take too many rounds to care about free curses that don't stack.

 

[Malcadon]

Certainly makes cursing people much more efficient (for a PC) as otherwise the curse spells are awful wastes of PPs. Well, not really as it would take too many rounds to care about free curses that don't stack.

Waste of PP? Role-playing wise, Curse spells are a waste of ink! I never liked when D&D throw +/- whatever effects at players to make the game more interesting. Hard mechanical adjustments are a poor substitute for something that is suppose to aid role-playing. The revised Curse spells in the Savant class rule revision got it right! Its a lot more interesting to have effects that are tangible then making your enemy hit like a little girl! :roll: Folks might say that all the long term, non-immediate effects of the Savant-styled Curses have no real use for PC Sorcerers up agents nameless NPC goons, but this is not D&D - Sorcerers dont need to lift a finger to send men fleeing, plus Sorcerers are bast used as NPCs.