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Lord

Registered: 12-2003
Posts: 104
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Fixing the Wizard


As you know, "fixing" has two meanings. Either it means to make something right but it can also mean castrating (mostly cats and dogs). Guess you realize that after this thread has been closed, the Wizard will have undergone one of these two options...

I was inspired by the following post of BassJam:

quote:

BassJam wrote:

1) Implemented current WFRP Insanity rules. Any arcane spellcaster that learns spells from more than one Lore of Magic (i.e. Wizard, Witch, Gypsy Nomad) gains 1d3 Insanity Points each time they level. Necromancers, Daemonologists, and Chaos Sorcerers do as well. If any character gains enough insanity points that they gain some mental condition, I'll simplify the WFRP rules a bit to make a chart more in the vein of MikeInside's Insanity rules.

2) The willy-nilly changing of the Winds of Magic from turn to turn is silly, imagine an arcane wind gusting and then going still that chaotically in a single location in every single dungeon. Also, the frequency of 1s rolled in random dungeons can get out of hand. My current system: Wizard character rolls the Power die each turn to see if there is a CHANGE in the Winds of Magic, which there is if he rolls a 1. He then rolls again to see what the Power Level is until further notice. (Yes, when the Wind of Magic is on 1, things will get quite ugly!)

3) Balancing this change is that another player or GM rolls every turn to see if there are Events. This happens if the GM rolls a 1 on a ten-sided die. (It used to be that separating the Random Event roll and Power Phase roll made Wizards too powerful - this is not an issue any more in my games due to the consequences in the new magic system.) Note that the Ogre character can be playable with this change as the chances are less of Ogre player and GM rolling doubles emoticon

4) New WFRP casting rolls will be used to give a chance of spell failure. Novice spellcasters roll 1d10 when casting, 2-4 rolls 2d10, 6-8 rolls 3d10, Wizard Lords roll 4d10. If Power roll is 1, there is one less die to roll (minimum 1d10) and if Power roll is 6 there is an extra d10 (Tzeentch is watching!)

Explanation: Even if my player is a standard Wizard, casting spells per the normal rules, magic cannot be so inconsequential as the constant Healing Hands we are used to. So, for example, Quasar the 2nd level Wizard casts Healing Hands from his allotment of power as normal. However, he rolls 2d10 because if he were to roll double ones his spell would fail and he would gain an Insanity Point! If he rolls doubles of any other sort the Curse of Tzeentch takes effect and even though the Healing Hands spell works properly some unsought after effect may also come through the warp!

Extra dice rolling I'm afraid but I just don't want magic taken for granted any more! I thought hard about converting their spell system to WHQ's d6-based casting and turning Wizards into luck-based casters like the Ranger Mage, but it just wouldn't work. With six-siders, there would be far too many spell failures and Curse of Tzeentch rolls.


Questions/Stuff I still want to do:

1) In every other RP game, it takes time to cast spells, but in WHQ the Wizard can cast as MANY spells per Turn as he wants! It is never fair to the other Warriors after level 1 either. So, should I limit how many spells Wizards can cast per round like the Ranger Mage and Warrior Priest? Or should I go through each spell and detail a casting time?

2) Speaking of which, I am really wishing I had more time and energy to work on stuff, because I really would like to write a Tome of Magic similar to the one written for the Magus character. Basically, I want to map out an ultimate spell list, detailing EVERY spell from the first WHQ book as well as every other spell I've ever thought of giving to a character. Even the different names that differing schools of magic have for the same spells would be detailed! I want to include casting times (in case I implement them), spell ingredients (if casters use ingredients they would get either Power discount or a + to their casting roll), and I'd detail how much power the spell would cost for a Wizard-type and what the casting roll would be for a luck-based caster.

I am talking a HUGE grimoire here because I tend to include spells from D&D, Mongoose D&D supplements, WFRP, Mordheim, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

 



Since this was in his personal thread, I thought it would be best to make it a separate thread together with some ideas of my own (I like some of his suggestions, but I don't think we should drop the d6 just for magic).

Okay, let's start with the Power Fase. I think it's best if we work with a constant Winds of Magic, so whatever the die roll is in the Power Fase, the Wizard can still cast as he likes. Why the die roll, you ask? Because a 1 is (as before) an Unexpected Event. Any other number is only important if the Wizard indeed casts...

I would also like to limit the casting somehow, and maybe it would be best to link it to the attacks of the Wizard. He can cast one spell instead of an attack. If he gains somehow more attacks than he usually has on his profile (other than granted by weapons of course), he can also use these as spells. This is to keep the Wizard from hoarding his Powertokens and then unleash hell in the Objective Room, clearing it out in one turn.

Example: A lvl 2 wizard has 1 attack, thus 1 spell he can cast instead. If he drinks a Potion of Combat from the Wizard Guild he gains +1 attack, so he can either attack twice, attack once and cast 1 spell, or cast 2 spells.

As I said before, attacks granted by weapons don't count (so a Sword of Leaping Gold which gives +3 attacks, if I remember correctly, doesn't give 3 spell opportunities). Of course, to use these extra attacks, he must attack normally at least once.

Now for casting, the Wizard says which spell he wants to cast, rolls a die and adds his battle level to it. If it exceeds the required number to cast, he can cast it. If not, he fails. A 1 is an automatic failure (but I think a 6 being an automatic success is a bit too much). If he can cast another spell, he rolls a die for that, adds his battle level, but subtracts the amount of mana needed to cast any previous spells.
If he fails to cast a spell, he can use Powertokens to change the difference to succeed anyway.
If he rolls the same number as the die in the Power Fase, the spell works, even if failed, because Tzeentch witnessed the attempt and favoured him. He receives however 1d3 insanity points.
(On a personal note, I don't see this as using the Winds of Magic but as concentrating enough to make the spell work.)

Now an example to clarify all this: again the lvl 2 Wizard, this time casting a Fireball. This is a level 5 spell, so he must roll at least a 3 to suceed. A lvl 5 Wizard has 2 attacks, and can cast 2 spells. His first is a Fireball. He adds 5 to the die roll, but with 1 being a failure, he has to roll at least 2. Then he tries to cast a Heal Wounds (a level 4 spell). Since he has used a level 5 spell before, he lowers his battle level with 5, meaning he has to roll 4 or more to cast it. Unfortunately, he rolls a 3 (not enough to cast it), but he uses 1 Powertoken to make it a 4 so the spell works anyway. If a 3 had been rolled in the Power Fase, the spell would have been successful as well, but he would have gained 1d3 insanity points.

I would also include "spontaneous casting". He can cast 1 extra spell per turn (no attack needed for this one), but at twice the level. So, if he has used up all his attacks at the end of the turn, and one of his comrades is bleeding to death, he can try to cast a Healing Hands for 4 instead of the normal 2.

Hmm... I think this is everything I came up with at work emoticon , just two more things I'm not really sure of...

1) each spell can be cast only once per turn, thus limiting "cheese" spells like Healing Hands
2) I was thinking of making the Powertokens more important, allowing to use them to pump the effect of the spells. Example: You use a Fireball and use an extra 3 Powertokens to cast it (so, not making the spell cost 8, but still 5 and paying an extra 3 Powertokens), it now does 1d6 + the battlelevel of the wizard + 3. I am considering though to make this for the damage of the spells only (so with a Freeze you do 1d6 + x damage to that 1d6 enemies, and also not healing each warrior 1 + X wounds with a Healing Hands).
29/Mar/2006, 2:13 pm Link to this post Send Email to Sudden Real   Send PM to Sudden Real
 
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Lord

Registered: 07-2003
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 542
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Re: Fixing the Wizard


Now, some of your ideas are very good, however I am still not sure to what extent the casts per Turn should be limited. The game as it is now, the Wizard at Battle-level 4 sometimes can make 2 Attacks and cast literally 10 spells in a single Turn. Clearly that's too much (unless the rest of the party likes sitting back and watching the one player go), but the party depends on this for survival (thus the crack addiction analogy). So if the Wizard is toned down as drastically as you suggest the Monsters can't come near as fast and furious. That's why I'm implementing the 1d10 for Random Events and such in my own game (and I'm not even limiting casting as much as you suggest)- the current game is fast and furious hackfest with the Wizard as engine and if that engine is stripped down with no change in the environment things will get ugly fast.

I will stay tuned because I'm curious what everyone else thinks about the spells per Turn (or if it should vary by spell) as I have not made up my mind on this.

---
"Mine is a high art. I wound with cruelty those who would harm me." - Archillicus
30/Mar/2006, 12:18 am Link to this post Send Email to BassJam   Send PM to BassJam
 
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Lord

Registered: 12-2003
Posts: 104
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Re: Fixing the Wizard


Of course, the casting per turn is just a first draft. I'm open for suggestions.

And of course I realise that a Wizard like this won't survive long in the environment an "old school" Wizard hangs around, but then again, seeing as the Bestiary has to be rewritten too (to take out obsolete and/or old critters) it's a logic step to redo the Monstertables too. For the moment the Monstertable is broken (not as much as some other parts of the game), and if we tune our attempts to fix things to something broken, it'll get worse than the start. The warriors are the most important here, so we should look at them without the monsters. And when the warriors are up to date, then we can focus on the monsters and see how they turn out.
30/Mar/2006, 2:00 am Link to this post Send Email to Sudden Real   Send PM to Sudden Real
 


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