Legend and Common magic: Who uses it?

Prime_Evil said:
A simple solution that I have used in the past is to place a limit on the Magnitude of the progressive spells that characters can cast. Limiting characters to a maximum Magnitude of POW / 4 (rounded down) provides a gritty, low-magic feel without prohibiting Common Magic entirely.

If I was inclined to use Common Magic, or my group actually wanted it in the game, this would be the sort of approach I would take. Along with your suggest for limiting the number of spells.
 
@Roguewind

Sorry, my bad, I misinterpreted your OP. I was thinking you wanted to restrict magic using characters to 1D3 MP per day, not recovering 1D3 MP. That's a totally different kettle of fish and if that's how you want to manage magic in your game it's not a bad way of doing it.

Personally, I'm not a massive fan of any form of magic. In my experience with D&D & Legend creative magic using PC's can often reduce an encounter, especially if they have the luxury of being be able to prepare ahead of time, from being challenging/difficult to ridiculously easy. I was running the Caravan adventure from RQ6 Book of Quests. The party had 2 sorcerers with different grimoires. In the semi-climatic battle against far superior numbers the PC's won easliy, here's how: Both sorcerers had grimoire skills higher than 70%, by casting Attract (Missiles) on a huge shield and a combination of Damage Enhancement and Damage Resistance across the party it meant that the opponents on a successful hit (hard enough already given the PC's combat styles being a good 20% higher) could barely damage them unless they rolled max damage for their weapon or managed to generate 2 CM's via a crit, conversely the PC's were basically doing a minimum of 8 damage - generally sufficient to incapacitate a foe with average HP, particularly if a CM was involved in one hit.

So, I don't like magic full stop. But it's fantasy gaming and magic is an expected/inherent trope that we as GM's just have to manage as best we can.
 
@DamonJynx

That's OK, and makes your post more understandable. :lol:

I have a similar view, in that it can reduce an encounter and for similar reasons. It also restricted me in the use of magic using NPCs, since they too would prepare before a fight.

Something I missed off my original post, was that once a magic user runs out of magic points they can continue. But for each magic point they would have spent, they receive a fatigue level. Since I first read the original Dragonlance books, I've been struck with the image of Raistlin being exhausted after casting too much magic.

That coupled with the slow regaining of magic points mean that a magic user can still be spectacular but they could be exhausted and unable to recast any major spells for a while.
 
Both sorcerers had grimoire skills higher than 70%, by casting Attract (Missiles) on a huge shield and a combination of Damage Enhancement and Damage Resistance across the party it meant that the opponents on a successful hit (hard enough already given the PC's combat styles being a good 20% higher) could barely damage them unless they rolled max damage for their weapon or managed to generate 2 CM's via a crit, conversely the PC's were basically doing a minimum of 8 damage - generally sufficient to incapacitate a foe with average HP, particularly if a CM was involved in one hit.

This is exactly my problem. It is very easy in a long-running campaign for the sorcerer to hit over 100% in Grimoire, and they can start out quite high in any event. Damage Resistance in particular is problematic. It's got to the stage where the only enemy shots that can hit a character are going to kill them, and in such a long-running campaign I'd rather not one-shot them. I'll probably handle this by making Damage Resistance Ablative, i.e. damage shaves points off the damage resistance, or by making it functionally equivalent to Damage Enhancement - you get armor equivalent to the strongest actual armor you have (e.g. one plate vambrace = 6 points of armor all round). Wrack I will handle by requiring concentration, and so on.

Of course, my players are going to complain mightily about this.

I'd love to hear how others have handled the problem of very high Grimoire skills.
 
One thought regarding controlling spellcasters, particularly sorcerers, is: How common are the various forms of magic dispelling? After all, a well rounded combat team in a magic common world would surely have a variety of means to cancel magic, particularly if they had an official role/position.

That forces sorcerers to spend mp and manipulation on intensity, as well as multiple base casting due to spells going down. Even common magic/Folk magic could dispel if nothing/not enough power has gone into intensity.
 
DamonJynx said:
In my experience with D&D & Legend creative magic using PC's can often reduce an encounter, especially if they have the luxury of being be able to prepare ahead of time, from being challenging/difficult to ridiculously easy. I was running the Caravan adventure from RQ6 Book of Quests. The party had 2 sorcerers with different grimoires. In the semi-climatic battle against far superior numbers the PC's won easliy, here's how: Both sorcerers had grimoire skills higher than 70%, by casting Attract (Missiles) on a huge shield and a combination of Damage Enhancement and Damage Resistance across the party it meant that the opponents on a successful hit (hard enough already given the PC's combat styles being a good 20% higher) could barely damage them unless they rolled max damage for their weapon or managed to generate 2 CM's via a crit, conversely the PC's were basically doing a minimum of 8 damage - generally sufficient to incapacitate a foe with average HP, particularly if a CM was involved in one hit.

Not denying magic is powerful, but some things struck me after reading this.

The Caravan is meant to be an opening adventure, for recently started characters, so I am surprised their Grimoire skills were in that area. The only way they could have been is if they were able to put points into them at Cultural experience. What kind of culture would allow all of its citizens access to higher magics, particularly militaristic grimoires such as those containing Attract (missiles), and Damage Enhancement? I would think any sorcery using culture would restrict such knowledge to sorcerous orders that supported military units. This would mean that there was a maximum of +30 points to go into the base skills for casting. Also, had they an appropriate other 5 skills at membership levels (50% I think) in order to qualify for membership of such an organisation?

The book of Quests also details the cultural background to the setting of The Caravan, which has a lowish level of magic, with Sorcery practically unknown and associated with evil. If you have a party and a setting with a higher level of magic, then those tribesmen can be expected to have some magic of their own, even if its just useful Folk Magic, with potentially an Initiate or two of a Divine Cult amongst them.

Cultural concerns, I believe are some of the prime means RQ uses to balance magical power. As Spiderman said, "With great power comes great responsibility". Consider playing up those responsibilities and consequences, maybe?
 
Harshlax said:
I was using the extract version of the adventure, not the one published in the actual book which gives far more information regarding setting, magic levels and so forth.

Perhaps I was mistaken re their skill levels, in my defence it was quite a awhile ago, so I may to some degree, be getting my memory mixed up with my imagination. I know it was frustrating though. Perhaps they were in the mid 50's, low 60's ranges.

The point of the post though was to highlight how magic can be very powerful if used creatively and that we as GM's need to be mindful of some of these effects and how we manage that power in our games.
 
DamonJynx said:
Harshlax said:
The point of the post though was to highlight how magic can be very powerful if used creatively and that we as GM's need to be mindful of some of these effects and how we manage that power in our games.

Which should be fairly high in every GM's handbook.

Players always find inventive ways of using things, not just magic, to make their adventurers more powerful/effective.
 
soltakss said:
Which should be fairly high in every GM's handbook.

Players always find inventive ways of using things, not just magic, to make their adventurers more powerful/effective.

And to a certain extent creativity of this sort should be encouraged so long as it does not get out of hand...
 
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