Delvers 2E: Let's Overhaul Magic AGAIN

Third time’s an, ahem, charm, right?

Riiight?

In 1st Edition Dungeons & Delvers we did away with all the pseudo-Vancian nonsense, going with a largely variable spell point model: a wizard has access to spells—as well as Talents that can build on spells—and when you cast a spell roll one or more dice, maybe add a modifier, and the total is many spell points you burn through.

If you didn’t have enough, you started eating into hit points, so this plus the randomization made magic both dangerous and unpredictable.

Many spells share names and at least somewhat similar effects to what you’d expect from Dungeons & Dragons, though since there are no spell levels they tend to have subdued effects.

For example, Fireball “only” deals like 2d6 damage at the start and has a 10-foot blast radius. To get it where you'd expect—5d6 and a 20-foot radius—you have to spend more spell points. Most every spell has various ways to enhance it, which helps ensure that even something like Magic Missile remains useful at higher levels (just keep upping the Drain cost to conjure more missiles and/or up the damage).

Some spells had a Sustain cost. These you would just cast, reduce your maximum Willpower by a set amount, and gain its effects.

For example, Magic Weapon had a Sustain cost of I think 2 or 4, and while active you gained a bonus to hit and damage. You could up the Sustain cost to up the bonus, but couldn’t reduce your Willpower to less than 0 (ie, you couldn’t use hit points to fuel Sustain spells). Also, having Sustain spells reduce Willpower instead of just spending it was an important distinction, because then you couldn’t rest or use mindfire potions to regain it.

Now, as much as we enjoyed all of this and it worked really well, we overhauled it quite a bit in 2nd Edition.

First, we changed the spell categories from the traditional Dungeons & Dragons fare to something that made more sense within the implied setting. So, instead of Conjuration, Divination, Evocation, and Illusion, you have Aeroturgy, Hydroturgy, Pyroturgy, and Terraturgy as the main ones.

Second, we mostly scrapped spell Talent trees. Before if you wanted, say, Charm Person, you had to pick Enchanter, which was a Sustain Talent that let you use Intelligence instead of Charisma for social skills. Some were more complex though: for example, Fireball required Scorching Ray, which required Burning Hands, which required Evoker (the idea behind this was to reflect a wizard learning the basics of a spell school, and building on it over time).

Now, no spells have requirements: the categories are just a way to conveniently divvy things up as opposed to a gateway Talent. You can pick any spell at any time, you just need to mind the Drain cost. There are however still Talent trees, technically, as most spells have a all of one Talent that modifies it in some way.

For example, Bombard is a Terraturgy spell that has you conjure and propel a stone at a target. Deals a bunch of damage, and there’s the potential for knockback. If you have it, you can take a Talent called Explosive Round, which gives a minor, free buff to Bombard, but also lets you spend some more Willpower to have the stone explode on impact.

Another was Scattered Rays, which modifies Scorching Ray so that you can divide the damage dice as desired between targets, and I think there was another one that let Scorching Ray burn though one target and strike a guy behind it.

We got rid of all autoscaling parameters. Before Duration and sometimes Area of Effect or number of targets might scale automatically, for no other reason than this is how it was done in Dungeons & Dragons.

Now if you want to buff the spell in any capacity, you’re going to have to suffer more Drain, and if the total Drain dice exceeds your wizard level, anything in excess is automatically maxed out (and cannot be re-rolled, which I’ll get to in a bit). So, if you’re level 3 and end up rolling 5d4 for Drain, two dice are set to 4 and you roll the other three.

On the upside, the wizard’s staff does a lot more than it did before: it’s considered a magic weapon, and instead of just allowing you to add your Magic Bonus to save DCs, it also lets you re-reroll Drain dice and increase your effective wizard level, both of which are especially handy given that, while initial hit points are higher than before—wizards start with 11 instead of effectively 4—you don’t add Constitution to the total at all and you gain less at each level (+1 instead of +3).

I think this new setup is better than before, but the wife and kids really don’t like it when their wizards run out of Willpower because, even though monster math is lower than what you’d expect—ogres are AC 8 or 9, many dragons 11 to 13—and wizards can wear any armor because why wouldn’t they be able to, they suck when it comes to combat, mostly attacking in order to contribute to the Ganging Up bonus.

And you might be thinking well, yeah, of course wizards suck at combat…but should they? After all, we’re not talking about a guy who just sits in a tower or library poring over grimoires and perhaps engaging in bizarre experiments, but one who spends the majority of his time roaming the countryside, crawling through ruins, and hitting monsters—or at least trying too—rather than the books.

We already removed clerics as an adventuring class because they made no sense—a shame because I really liked the flavor and mechanics behind our version—and for a while considered removing wizards for similar reasons: after all, it would make far more sense for what you could I guess call the “traditional” wizard archetype to hang around a town or city, charging others utilizing his perpetually renewing, reliable, risk-free powers.

(You know, like NPCs do at an absurd rate. Seriously, just charge half that: you’ll easily corner the market, it’s still an insane amount and it’s not like casting spells actually costs you anything.)

But then wizards aren’t granted powers by a god, presumably to enact his will on the mortal realm, perform miracles in an attempt to attract new followers and retain the current flock. You know, the sort of stuff you’d expect a cleric to do as opposed to what they end up doing, which is roaming the countryside, crawling through ruins, and hitting monsters (often with divine might).

So it’s possible that a wizard might decide to go through the presumably laborious process to learn magic…and then opt to consistently place himself in danger…even though he has no need to, especially if the primary motivator is money.

And given that the adventuring wizard is spending most of his time adventuring, it makes sense for the class to have a bit more might and perhaps a bit less magic. Not a 50:50 split but maybe more like…one-third warrior, two-thirds wizard. So for our next playtest game we’re going to give him a rogue’s initial combat numbers and progression (ie, start out 1 higher in both attack rolls and Defense, and have it scale faster).

Something else we want to try is moving further away from yet more D&Disms and divide spells into Charms, Evocations, and Rituals, simply because what we’ve brainstormed sounds more interesting.

Charms would be pretty cheap and easy to use, and have minor/subtle effects. The duration would vary: some I can see lasting a short period of time, like a bonus to hit or speed, others could last quite awhile, such as if extending the life of a light source, preserving food, or staving off hunger for the day. And then some might have an instantaneous effect, such as one that could cleanse wounds so you don’t need to check for diseases later, purify food or water, or instantly pick a lock.

Evocations are the flashy fire-and-forget fare, your classic gouts of flame and bolts of lightning. Most anything that involves a quick release of energy or matter. These wouldn’t always be attacks though: I could see one letting you conjure a small barrier (strike the ground and it just appears), another that lets you fly for just a round (better land during that time), and then something like Shatter where you try to just destroy an object.

Rituals are for everything else. Complex effects that can last a long time and/or do a lot more, but take time to prepare and about as long to cast. These would be used to summon things, change the weather, fly for a longer period of time, and enchant objects with various effects.

And I don’t just mean permanent stuff: instead of, say, having a Fiery Shroud spell, you might need to use a ritual to charge an item or cloak with the effect, and can then activate it later. I think Charms could also be placed on items, and then anyone can activate it, though in these cases the enchantment wouldn’t necessarily last long, or reduce your max Willpower so you can’t just keep slapping enchantments on items willy nilly.

At least, not without some other cost. I could see permanent or longer-lasting enchantments that require material components.

The hope is that, in actual play, we’ll have a wizard that is much more flavorful and interesting—especially with the ability to enchant items and create temporary talismans and focuses—and capable when he runs out of magic juice. Melissa’s got yet another adventure brewing, so have to wait and see.