Hola -
ich hatte in meiner D&D-Runde hier in Amerika ein Diksussion ueber alternative Moeglichkeiten mit Magie umzugehen. Dazu hab ich etwas geschrieben, was vielleicht eden einen oder anderen interessiert. Es tauchen viele Gedanken auf, die hier im Forum diskutiert wurden, also gilt mein Dank euch allen...Grofafo bildet halt
. Ist natuerlich Englisch, weil die Addressaten Amis sind, und ich zu faul zum Uebersetzn bin.
I never found the way in which D&D handles magic to be very reasonable, for two reasons. 1) Why do you have to memorize
spells in advance? Obviously, it's meant to be a way to blance powers, but there should be a better way 2.) The PHB gives you a lot of numbers and statistics, but very little on how to roleplay magic. Spells are vey inflexible and rigid, and the way it's presented in the PHB, magic's a tool - not something mysterious, inexplicable.
So I'm all for thinking about alternatives.
One thing that would make sense for me is a system in which spells are
basically skills. Players would put ranks in their spells and throw dice against a DC set by the GM depending on what they want the effect of the spell to be.
A light spell could light up the area around the party (DC10), illuminate a
whole halfling party (DC20) or blind their enemies with the power of a
thousand suns (DC30). If they fail, something goes seriously wrong. Magic is dangerous. Maybe they would have to spend mana points or something similar, depending on how strong the effect was. Bottom line: More flexible, spontaneous casting, somewhat unpredictable - as magic should be.
But that's a lot of work, and I guess we don't want to rewrite the whole
system.
As far as the mana points are concerned, I think the key question is
regeneration.
If you would rule that players would get back all their mana points after
one night's rest (just like they would get back their spell slots), then you
really don't need mana points. You would just rule that players can cast all their spells whenever, and they would have to keep track of how many spells of each level they have left on a given day.
If you want mana points to be regenerated over time, like hit points, the
effect would be that magic users can burn off a firework of effects during a short period of time (until they've used up all their mana), and then couldn't do anything for a long period of time. It certainly shifts the balance of the game, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
But ultimately, whatever the rules, you could always find ways to outpower everyone else, if you really wanted to. If it's about balancing the game, as seems to be Tristan's concern, I think a very easy way to help that is to put more emphasis on roleplaying when using spells. The rules are more like guidelines, anyway. Just because they offer something, you don't have to take it.
What Sam and Tristan came up with about concentration checks etc. is a step in that direction (and, actually, a gvery good idea. I'm for it).
There's the players. Maybe your druid just doesn't like fire elementals.
Maybe he thinks elementals are for cowards, and real men use lightning strikes.Maybe all the kewl druids nowadays only shapechange into bears, not magic animals. Maybe his mother died stuck in a tree while travelling through plants, and that's why he never does it. Or only when he really, really needs to.
There's the GM. So your players can summon fire elementals and shapechange into six-dimensional tentacle blob-kings? Fine. So you a) let them shine.Players like to win. Something along the lines of "The Palace of the Ice Trolls" or "Stealing the treasure of the six-dimensional tentacle blobs". And you b) come up with situations in which their powers are completely useless. Players like to be challenged. Something along the lines of "The oil fields of Kurant" or "Against the six-dimensional tentacle blobs who know how to use a
permanent disable alter self spell and don't bother asking questions when they catch you sneaking in their dimension".
And there we are all together. Picture this: A summoned fire elemental
fights a giant. It hits the giant. The giant catches fire. Now, giants are stupid,but not that stupid. The giant drops his weapon and runs away. Now, this might be a clever giant, but he's still pretty stupid. He tries to quench the fire by rolling around on the ground screaming. In a forest. In the middle of summer. It hasn't rained for two months. Not good. Cut to next scene. A party of heroes chasing a burning troll, trying to put the fire out. A druid screaming at his fire elemental "Stay on that clearing! STAY ON THAT CLEARING". Red Adair as a pixie hovers overhead with a thimble full of water. The Barbarian feels someone tapping his shoulder. As he turns around, he sees a treant.
The treant is not happy. "Say, why are you burning down my forest?" , "But it wasn't us, it's the giant!", "Yeah, right". Oh, and there's still the giant's buddies piercing the party with arrows. Cut to next scene: A very, very angry giant. A very, very angry treant. A burning forest. Ouch, an arrow. What will the druid council say if this whole forest burns down?
(I don't know if the rules say that the giant would catch fire. But the GM
could just rule it and the players could accept it. The players could just
fight his buddies and don't care about the burning forest. Ok, but that could still mean that you HAVE to use a move action every round in order to escape pieces of burning forest falling down on you, and so you can't use full round actions anymore, like, say, Manyshot or Rapid Shot. Poor ranger)
With great power comes great responsibility. If you can do a lot of ouch,
you'll soon find out that The Middle of Ouch can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Believe me, I know. I play Karg
.
You can just use the spell and roll for damage, but you can also think about what that spell does to the world your moving in and what its side effects are. Leave the rules in place, play a little bit differently.
