My group and I started using a Spellcheck system to replace spell slots and it's going pretty well (my intention was to simplify life for spellcasters, which it did very well); however, my style is a bit low-ish magic dark fantasy / horror, so I'm thinking of a system to rein in their magic use a little and make it scary at the same time. I'm sharing the concept and some general design ideas I have for this system and hopefully someone can help me catch the cracks or provide some ideas.
The foundational concept is that as spellcasters cast spells during an encountter, the DM starts accruing tokens (think Fear in Daggerheart). These tokens can be used by the DM to activate effects only after they've passed specific thresholds, but these effects are random (there are several tables, one for each threshold). These effects don't have to be overtly magical, but they change the circumstances of the encounter, nevertheless. This token pool only decreases if the PCs don't cast any spells in a turn, but they can still have ongoing magical effects.
What do you think? I'm thinking the pool goes down when an effect is activated, but the DM can choose to wait until the pool is bigger to activate a more powerful effect. I'm still not too sure on how powerful the most powerful effect should be and how many spells it would require, I want my players to feel the pressure every time they cast a spell, but don't want the system to feel punishing.
Well, my immediate thought is that having any sort of wild magic surge, unless telegraphed by an area being suffused with weird magic, will make the focus of the game more on the spellcasters than the non-spellcasters, and will steal the thunder of any wild magic sorcerer in the game.
However, the idea of accruing tokens for the group (or individuals) when they casts spells has intrigued me. Here's my ideas:
What if the reasoning for this effect is not that magic doesn't work, it's that magic attracts unwanted attention? Maybe the veil is thin here, and lost souls seek to leap through with the channelled magic, or perhaps a long-forgotten artificer loosed hundreds of sentinel-like constructs on the world which were tasked with hunting down magic users for a long-forgotten goal, and they are still active, like the guardians in Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild. Maybe there's things that will come for you if you use magic.
Perhaps you can make a "random" encounter table which is modified by the number of spell slots which have been used. You can roll for it at each rest - roll on the table and add the number of spell slots used (IE, if they cast a 2nd level and a 5th level spell, then add 7). 1-20 is nothing happening, 21-30 is an easy but inconvenient encounter, 31-40 is a medium encounter, 41-50 is a hard encounter, and 51+ is something huge and terrifying.
Examples could be Shadows ambushing the magic users, or the aforementioned mage-hunting golems. The goal, to my mind, would be for whatever is coming for them to present a bigger threat to the magic users than the non-magic characters, so that the fighter and the barbarian can have their moment saving the day because the mages accidentally summoned a huge golem wreathed in an antimagic slime.
First, thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, reading feedback really does help in the process of improving things. Now, to address your points:
1. The effects I have in mind are pretty different from Wild Magic, and since my DMing style is more horror / dark fantasy, I probably wouldn't even allow a Wild Magic Sorcerer anyways. Also, these are much lower in power, so even if there was one, I don't think this would overshadow them. The effects also increase in power depending on how many tokens are used. Here's an example of the most powerful effect I have in mind, which is considerably more "dangerous" than the second most powerful: The Mists: The Domains possess a delicate balance of dark and light magic that keeps all the dreadful things inside contained, but when the balance starts to break, the world self-corrects, placating all the energies that have been released by spellcasters. A 60ft radius area of fog covers the battlefield, centered equidistantly from all spellcaster PCs; any creature that begins its turn inside this fog must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or take 1 level of Exhaustion, which cannot be regained while still inside the fog. If any creature enters the fog, at the end of its turn the fog will always return it to the same point from which it entered. Everything inside is considered Heavily Obscured. If a creature starts its turn inside the fog, it will be transported to the closest point outside of it at the end of its turn. The fog dissipates after 2 rounds in the same Initiative group it appeared in.
2. I created a system like what you're suggesting for my own TTRPG, but because I have to worry about "balance" a bit more in D&D to not make some classes feel like they're being punished for existing, I decided to keep the power level for these pretty tame and mostly atmospheric. In fact, I rethought the mechanism for lowering the size of the pool from just not casting spells in 1 round, to having to Bloody or kill enemies (either removes 1 token from the pool and can onle happen once per enemy) using only physical damage from any non-spell source. The pool goes back to 0 after 1 minute without spellcasting of any kind (spells or cantrips). (And yes, this favours big monsters / bosses, that's part of the idea).
Now, I know this is a small nerf to spellcasters, but it serves two purposes: the first is that they were buffed by the changes I made to how spellcasting works (which were necessary to attain the level of simplification I wanted), the second is that it introduces a stress factor the players can see at the table, but also feel, because it affects everyone. I don't really know if I'm explaining myself well, but I'll test this and report how it went.
"I'm thinking of a system to rein in their magic use a little"
Getting rid of spell slots and creating somewhat random, dm controlled negatuve consequences so that players end up castig fewer spells than they would with slots, seems a bit complicated.
I think that to keep it balanced, you should add some way to implement the random table thing with the martial class abilities as well, so that the randomized effects don't feel like you're specifically zoning in on and shutting down spellcasters.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
If your priority is to "rein in" spellcasters, then i dont think i would be interested in playing in such a game.
If your priority is "dark fantasy / horror", then you might want to look at the "crooked moon" source book, specifically the wizard occultist subclass they invented in the book. It has a mechanism called "intrusion" where the caster can get advantage on an attack roll or impose disadvantage on someones saving throw, which is a benefit to the caster, but as a result, they roll their intrusion die (starts out as a d6) and on a 1, they roll a d12 to see whatbthe intrusion is.
"I'm thinking of a system to rein in their magic use a little"
Getting rid of spell slots and creating somewhat random, dm controlled negatuve consequences so that players end up castig fewer spells than they would with slots, seems a bit complicated.
I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it's been working quite well the few sessions I've been able to test it so far. The idea is to provide simplicity and an illusion of power, without actually making PCs more powerful. It's also helped me create a stronger horror atmosphere during encounters. Needs some adjustments, but it's working.
I think that to keep it balanced, you should add some way to implement the random table thing with the martial class abilities as well, so that the randomized effects don't feel like you're specifically zoning in on and shutting down spellcasters.
The effects are specific to magic use, but martials can help manage how fast they can happen, like I explained in the second post. Still, I feel I'm missing something to make martials feel more relevant.
If your priority is to "rein in" spellcasters, then i dont think i would be interested in playing in such a game.
If your priority is "dark fantasy / horror", then you might want to look at the "crooked moon" source book, specifically the wizard occultist subclass they invented in the book. It has a mechanism called "intrusion" where the caster can get advantage on an attack roll or impose disadvantage on someones saving throw, which is a benefit to the caster, but as a result, they roll their intrusion die (starts out as a d6) and on a 1, they roll a d12 to see whatbthe intrusion is.
Most intrusions are one-turn-long bad things.
I gave them a bit more power and then reined it back, so they have about the same level of power. I just checked the book you mentioned, it's a shame I'm not in the US (it's too expensive to have it sent here) because it looks really good.
My group and I started using a Spellcheck system to replace spell slots and it's going pretty well (my intention was to simplify life for spellcasters, which it did very well); however, my style is a bit low-ish magic dark fantasy / horror, so I'm thinking of a system to rein in their magic use a little and make it scary at the same time. I'm sharing the concept and some general design ideas I have for this system and hopefully someone can help me catch the cracks or provide some ideas.
The foundational concept is that as spellcasters cast spells during an encountter, the DM starts accruing tokens (think Fear in Daggerheart). These tokens can be used by the DM to activate effects only after they've passed specific thresholds, but these effects are random (there are several tables, one for each threshold). These effects don't have to be overtly magical, but they change the circumstances of the encounter, nevertheless. This token pool only decreases if the PCs don't cast any spells in a turn, but they can still have ongoing magical effects.
What do you think? I'm thinking the pool goes down when an effect is activated, but the DM can choose to wait until the pool is bigger to activate a more powerful effect. I'm still not too sure on how powerful the most powerful effect should be and how many spells it would require, I want my players to feel the pressure every time they cast a spell, but don't want the system to feel punishing.
Well, my immediate thought is that having any sort of wild magic surge, unless telegraphed by an area being suffused with weird magic, will make the focus of the game more on the spellcasters than the non-spellcasters, and will steal the thunder of any wild magic sorcerer in the game.
However, the idea of accruing tokens for the group (or individuals) when they casts spells has intrigued me. Here's my ideas:
What if the reasoning for this effect is not that magic doesn't work, it's that magic attracts unwanted attention? Maybe the veil is thin here, and lost souls seek to leap through with the channelled magic, or perhaps a long-forgotten artificer loosed hundreds of sentinel-like constructs on the world which were tasked with hunting down magic users for a long-forgotten goal, and they are still active, like the guardians in Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild. Maybe there's things that will come for you if you use magic.
Perhaps you can make a "random" encounter table which is modified by the number of spell slots which have been used. You can roll for it at each rest - roll on the table and add the number of spell slots used (IE, if they cast a 2nd level and a 5th level spell, then add 7). 1-20 is nothing happening, 21-30 is an easy but inconvenient encounter, 31-40 is a medium encounter, 41-50 is a hard encounter, and 51+ is something huge and terrifying.
Examples could be Shadows ambushing the magic users, or the aforementioned mage-hunting golems. The goal, to my mind, would be for whatever is coming for them to present a bigger threat to the magic users than the non-magic characters, so that the fighter and the barbarian can have their moment saving the day because the mages accidentally summoned a huge golem wreathed in an antimagic slime.
I am totally including this in my world!
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First, thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, reading feedback really does help in the process of improving things. Now, to address your points:
1. The effects I have in mind are pretty different from Wild Magic, and since my DMing style is more horror / dark fantasy, I probably wouldn't even allow a Wild Magic Sorcerer anyways. Also, these are much lower in power, so even if there was one, I don't think this would overshadow them. The effects also increase in power depending on how many tokens are used. Here's an example of the most powerful effect I have in mind, which is considerably more "dangerous" than the second most powerful:
The Mists: The Domains possess a delicate balance of dark and light magic that keeps all the dreadful things inside contained, but when the balance starts to break, the world self-corrects, placating all the energies that have been released by spellcasters. A 60ft radius area of fog covers the battlefield, centered equidistantly from all spellcaster PCs; any creature that begins its turn inside this fog must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or take 1 level of Exhaustion, which cannot be regained while still inside the fog. If any creature enters the fog, at the end of its turn the fog will always return it to the same point from which it entered. Everything inside is considered Heavily Obscured. If a creature starts its turn inside the fog, it will be transported to the closest point outside of it at the end of its turn. The fog dissipates after 2 rounds in the same Initiative group it appeared in.
2. I created a system like what you're suggesting for my own TTRPG, but because I have to worry about "balance" a bit more in D&D to not make some classes feel like they're being punished for existing, I decided to keep the power level for these pretty tame and mostly atmospheric. In fact, I rethought the mechanism for lowering the size of the pool from just not casting spells in 1 round, to having to Bloody or kill enemies (either removes 1 token from the pool and can onle happen once per enemy) using only physical damage from any non-spell source. The pool goes back to 0 after 1 minute without spellcasting of any kind (spells or cantrips). (And yes, this favours big monsters / bosses, that's part of the idea).
Now, I know this is a small nerf to spellcasters, but it serves two purposes: the first is that they were buffed by the changes I made to how spellcasting works (which were necessary to attain the level of simplification I wanted), the second is that it introduces a stress factor the players can see at the table, but also feel, because it affects everyone. I don't really know if I'm explaining myself well, but I'll test this and report how it went.
"Spellcheck system to replace spell slots"
You got rid of spell SLOTS?
"I'm thinking of a system to rein in their magic use a little"
Getting rid of spell slots and creating somewhat random, dm controlled negatuve consequences so that players end up castig fewer spells than they would with slots, seems a bit complicated.
I think that to keep it balanced, you should add some way to implement the random table thing with the martial class abilities as well, so that the randomized effects don't feel like you're specifically zoning in on and shutting down spellcasters.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
If your priority is to "rein in" spellcasters, then i dont think i would be interested in playing in such a game.
If your priority is "dark fantasy / horror", then you might want to look at the "crooked moon" source book, specifically the wizard occultist subclass they invented in the book. It has a mechanism called "intrusion" where the caster can get advantage on an attack roll or impose disadvantage on someones saving throw, which is a benefit to the caster, but as a result, they roll their intrusion die (starts out as a d6) and on a 1, they roll a d12 to see whatbthe intrusion is.
Most intrusions are one-turn-long bad things.
I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it's been working quite well the few sessions I've been able to test it so far. The idea is to provide simplicity and an illusion of power, without actually making PCs more powerful. It's also helped me create a stronger horror atmosphere during encounters. Needs some adjustments, but it's working.
The effects are specific to magic use, but martials can help manage how fast they can happen, like I explained in the second post. Still, I feel I'm missing something to make martials feel more relevant.
I gave them a bit more power and then reined it back, so they have about the same level of power. I just checked the book you mentioned, it's a shame I'm not in the US (it's too expensive to have it sent here) because it looks really good.
I just buy the digital copies and read online.
I'm cursed with the inability to read long texts on screens, I just start doing or thinking something else.