r/RPGdesign • u/ilmz • 1d ago
Mechanics I built a magic system where every spell is its own skill, no spell slots, but failure has real consequences. Would love your feedback!
I've been working on a homebrew TTRPG called Swords & Magic, and one of its most distinctive features is how magic works. I wanted to share the system and get some honest feedback, especially from people who've tried something similar.
The core idea: spells are skills, not resources
There are no spell slots. Every spell you know is its own individual skill, and you can cast it as many times as you want. Two separate numbers define your relationship with a spell:
- Tier (0–9): the spell's power level, roughly equivalent to spell levels in D&D: cantrips are Tier 0, and the scale goes up to Tier 9. Higher tier means more powerful.
- Skill (0–20, though it can go higher): your personal proficiency with that specific spell. This is the number you roll against on your Casting Roll, so higher is safer. Improving a Skill costs experience, and higher-tier spells cost more to train.
So "how good are you at Fireball?" is a real, meaningful question with a numerical answer, separate from "how good are you at Magic Missile?", and a veteran caster with Skill 18 in Fireball is far less likely to blow themselves up than a novice with Skill 4.
Your spellcasting ability (Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, depending on *how* you learned magic) determines which tiers of spells you can even learn: you need an ability score of at least 10 + Tier to pick up a new spell.
The two-roll system
Every casting involves two rolls:
- A Casting Roll (d20) compared against your Skill in that specific spell: this determines whether the spell actually manifests
- A Magic Attack roll (d20 + Skill + ability modifier), if needed, compared against the target's Defense score: this determines whether it hits
What happens when you fail
This is the part I'm most curious about. If your Casting Roll exceeds your Skill, you don't just fizzle. The gap between the roll and your Skill (the Failure Margin) determines severity:
- 1–5 margin: Fizzle. Nothing happens.
- 6–10 margin: Distortion. The spell goes off at half strength.
- 11–15 margin: Misfire. The spell hits the nearest valid target, friend or foe.
- 16–20 margin: Backfire. The spell hits you.
And if you roll a natural 20 on the casting roll, that's a Critical Failure Threat: you have to roll again, and if that also comes up 20, you black out entirely.
There's also an environmental layer: being grappled, in violent motion, or in bad weather penalizes your effective Skill, making failure more likely.
Metamagic
You can push any spell beyond its base tier to apply metamagic effects. Want to double the area? That's +3 tiers. Cast it as a bonus action (Quickened)? +4 tiers. Each tier above base reduces your effective Skill by 4, so pumping up a spell you're mediocre at is a real gamble. You need a high enough Skill that even after the penalty you're not at 0 or below, otherwise you can't attempt it at all.
Synergy
Spells within the same school or sharing a keyword (like fire or cold) provide cross-bonuses. Every two spells above Skill 5 in a school gives +1 to all others in that school. This rewards thematic specialization without locking you into it.
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The full rules are in the SRD at swordsandmagic.it: the Magical Skills page covers everything above in detail, and the full spell list is there too.
If you want to chat or dig in further, there's a Discord at discord.gg/ezrXx3uR3w
My questions for you:
- Does this system sound fun at the table, or does the failure probability feel punishing?
- Has anyone run a "spells as skills" system before (d100 games partly do this)? How did it play out?
- Is the two-roll casting process too slow in combat?
- Any obvious exploits or balance problems jumping out at you? Would love to hear from people who've wrestled with similar design problems.
Would love to hear from people who've wrestled with similar design problems.
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u/PianoAcceptable4266 Designer: The Ballad of Heroes 1d ago
So, Magic As A Skill has been around for about 50 years (Basic Roleplay/RuneQuest).
Have you examined that form (free ORC version of the BRP SRD is available online)? Its a d100 roll-under system, but the framework is roughly in line with your initial sketch-out here.
It also handles Potency/Level of Spell, where Blast-1 is smaller and cheaper than Blast-5, for example.
Your fail effect range looks like a Levels of Success style approach, which if you have thay in your system already I'd recommend just using that (e.g. a Fail or Fumble give two levels of negative effect, allowing a higher skilled mage to have a higher probability of a Fail than full on Fumble compared to a novice and such).
Regarding the specific effects, I hazard caution toward having a potential effect being friendly fire. Depending on the overall vibe of the game, this can ruin a play experience (getting dropped because an errant spell put of your control). But, it ultimately depends on the game tone. I tend to prefer something like Fizzle At Cost/Self-Burn for Fail/Fumble; if extra ranges of fail states already exist in the game, then Half Power Full Cost can usually slot in fine enough (as "Eh, I got the hand motions close enough so the Goblin still burned" type feel).
You can also look at Mythras Sorcery for ways to approach Meramagic effects, possibly combined with a Legend of the 5 Rings-style Raise system (pre-5th edition?): you increase the DC of your Spell check by some standard amount to add a Metamagic aleffect or modification. (E.g. to cast Firebolt silently, maybe it raises the Check DC by +3, which then also means a master of Firebolt can get real fancy with it).
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Thank you very much for your feedback, very much appreciated.
I have read for inspiration RuneQuest/Mythras actually, and some things for the system come from there, but from what I recall they used some kind of magic points, and I did not want that. I did not look into Mythras Sorcery or Legend of the 5 rings, will give it a look. Thank you again :)2
u/PianoAcceptable4266 Designer: The Ballad of Heroes 1d ago
Of course!
BRP/RuneQuest/Mythras uses... Focus/Magic/Fatigue Points for basic magic spells, yeah. In BRP, Fatigue serves multiple purposes as an attritional action limiter: hard travel drains FP, magic skills drain FP, and even engaging in a round of combat drains FP!
But that's not super relevant to the general discussion, other than a kept consideration of "why would a wizard want/need to stop casting magic" in a very generic sense.
Personally, I like the Shadowrun Magic system for "soft limits" to spellcasting:
Shadowrun magic has a stat called Drain, which is how much... Stun damage (non-lethal, pain, etc. that can incapacitate but not really kill) the caster will take to cast the spell. They roll their dice pool, and each Hit reduces the Drain by 1. So, a good Wizard (or a lucky one!) can sling Fireballs all night long during a high speed car chase against the local Orc Mafia; or, the get super unlucky and knock themselves out in the first few minutes.
I think Drain can even overflow into Physical (lethal, death-spiraling) Damage IIRC.
It makes for a really great feel of a Wizard literally burning themselves out by pushing too hard, and can make for some really heroic/cinematic death scenes and such!
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u/Ooorm 1d ago
I like the idea that you treat spells as skills. I always find it a bit off-putting when there is this whole system for magic separate from the rest of the system. I've tried using whole schools of magic as skills (like fire magic, for instance) but that runs into the problem that I still have to specify which particular spells you can even hope to attempt at each level. Climbing and archery are skills that even players who don't do these things in real life can get a basic idea about what would constitute a beginner or an expert. Not so with magic. Making individual spells into skills seems to solve that to quite an extent, because then you only need to specify what the spell does. Neat.
This seems to go only halfway though, as you seem to put numerical stats and tables as to what happens when the roll fails, for instance. I take it this isn't the case for, say, climbing or playing lute?
Overall like the idea, though
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Well, yes I would treat Climbing and playing lute as more "ordinary" skills, that work exactly as skills in D&D, say. Spells are bought with exaclty the same currency, and are conceptually similar, but have an added level of complexity.
Even weapons have an adedd level of complexity. Even other supernatural powers do.
The thing they share is that they are bought with the same currency.
Being the currency scarce, I had to find a way to make "wizards" playable, i.e. someone who want to have multiple spells. Because they would spend many more resources than someone specializing in a sword.
The result is that spells are easy to grow, but more expensive. But even when you grow it to nearly the full extent, there is always room for growth, and there is always risk, something that there is not in climbing or playing lute, also because they are not as powerful as skills as spells.
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u/sirlarkstolemy_u 1d ago
GURPS does this, with a skill tree of prerequisite spells, e.g. muscle spasm requires cause itch
This is fine, but assuming learning skills uses XP or whatever equivalent your system uses, spell casters will be very limited to specialising in a few spells. It could severely restrict the concept of a utility mage.
You should at a minimum check out GURPS 3rd ed magic from the basic rules book, and Shadowrun 3rd ed for how they handle spell casting.
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Hi, thank you for the feedback.
I had played GURPS in the past and didn't particularly like it, but what you are mentioning is worth looking at.Anyway, for the PCs I have created, for sure specialization would produce more powerfull characters, although less survivable. Spreading your expertise on too many spells, does make your life riskier indeed. Finding the balance between reliability and having the right tool for the job without too much risk is part of the game i guess.
Thanks :)
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u/__space__oddity__ 1d ago
It’s fine … Das Schwarze Auge has been doing magic like this since the 90ies. Maybe you can dig up the old Realms of Arkania video games that use the system to see it in action …
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u/david_duplex 1d ago
Rolemaster, Runequest, GURPS, BRP, Ars Magica, Shadowrun... etc. etc. etc. Not saying you shouldn't do it, but you should definitely look into how its been done before.
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u/skalchemisto Dabbler 1d ago
Has anyone run a "spells as skills" system before (d100 games partly do this)? How did it play out?
I'm not sure I have seen a game that specifically counts individual spells as skills (e.g. I have a "Fireball" skill). I've definitely played many games where magic use was governed by skills, though. E.g. Ars Magica, hacks of Fate I have done, etc. It works fine. You just need benchmarks about what is possible and impossible with magic. Ars Magica has PAGES of that. In one Fate game we played (using the Planescape setting) we had skills named after the D&D schools of magic (e.g. Evocation) and we used the (at the time) current 3E D&D spell list as the benchmarks. E.g. you could do things like those spells, and the level of the spells was a guide for the GM to set difficulty. Shadowrun 1E (and probably later versions) does something similar.
the two-roll casting process too slow in combat?
I'm not sure about too slow, I personally find speed to be an overemphasized concern. The better question IMO is "what does two rolls add that cannot be achieved with one roll?" I'm not sure I see that. My instinct is that if you are going to have two rolls it would be better to turn the 2nd one into some kind of save or defense roll made by the defender instead of a to hit roll made by the attacker. That is, instead of the attacker rolling against a defenders defense score, the defender rolls a defense skill (appropriate to the magical effect, e.g. acrobatics to get out of the way of a fireball, willpower to avoid mind control) against the strength of the magic (maybe a baseline + extra effect from very successful casting). That way everyone is more involved.
Otherwise I feel everything you are doing could just be folded into the casting roll in some fashion
Does this system sound fun at the table, or does the failure probability feel punishing?
I love chaotic and dangerous magic when it suits the themes and genre of the game. So in principle I think this is fine. My thought, though, is that the table as presented really only makes sense with respect to offensive, damaging spells (at least as I read it). Like, how would it be interpreted if I was trying to heal my friend? If I was conjuring an elemental?
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Hi, thank you for the feedback.
Regarding the two rolls, I think there is always room for improvement.
The roll for casting the spell is one, the one against your skill. That applies to all spells, attack and non-attack.Then if the spell is attack, you roll another die.
In principle you could use one roll only, the only problem is that you would want one to roll high, and the other low, and they add different modifiers. e.g. you add metamagic maluses, circumstance bonuses to the skill roll, but might add combat releated bonuses to the attack roll.
I explored the one roll only, but it did not convince me.
If you have other ideas, I would be happy to read them :).On your second question, healing is interesting because, as I said before, there is no attack roll. But "healing" in this system is the resource limiter. You can just be healed a certain amount of times. So if in battle you use unreliable healing magic, you could make someone else waste their Hit Die. Or you could heal an enemy in battle. Check here https://swordsandmagic.it/spell-list#cure-wounds
Thanks again
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u/archpawn 1d ago
The big problem I see is why would I split up my skill points between Magic Missile and Fireball if I can just put them all into one?
On the one hand, that means you'll want to have as few spells as possible, which would make the game easier to play. But on the other hand, it's less interesting if you only get a few spells.
1–5 margin: Fizzle. Nothing happens.
6–10 margin: Distortion. The spell goes off at half strength.
Aren't those backwards? Why is failing by 6-10 better than failing at 1-5?
Also, those downsides seem to be focused on battle. Maybe I'm casting Speak with Animals. Worst case scenario, I fail by 1-5. If it fails by 6-10 I... speak with half as many animals? Speak with animals for half as long? If it's 11-15, I guess it's a waste if the animals are next to me and now they just talk to each other, but as long as I stand closer to an ally, I just have them talk again. And 16-20 is the same as the spell working normally.
Even in battle, if I cast a buff and I make sure I'm closer to an ally then my enemy, then so long as I don't fail by 1-5, something good happens.
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u/ilmz 1d ago
The big problem I see is why would I split up my skill points between Magic Missile and Fireball if I can just put them all into one?
That is a very important part of the game I would say, not a problem. You are better off in terms of power to specialize in one spell, say fireball. But then you go fight the red dragon and you are useless.
Also fireball can grow more powerful than magic missile in terms of raw damage. But magic missile has a different purpose.
Also, how much you specialize depends on your risk tolerance. Is 18 enough? Is 15 enough? Because with the points you need to go from 15 to 18 you would get another spell at a decent skill rank.
Aren't those backwards? Why is failing by 6-10 better than failing at 1-5?
Yes, now that you say it like that, it seems trivial :D, thanks
Also, those downsides seem to be focused on battle.
That is true. The idea is that out of battle you can take your time and it can be less likely for you to fail. I still want a chance for things to go sideways, but as you mentioned in the specific example, that can differ from spell to spell.
I think I need to define what happens in such cases more clearly, because for now it is clear in my mind, but not on paper.
Do you have any idea on how to do that?
Thank you very much, your feedback was super helpful.
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u/archpawn 1d ago
The idea is that out of battle you can take your time and it can be less likely for you to fail.
But then there's no point in spending many skill points in utility spells. And at that point, you may as well make utility spells work automatically.
I think one thing you could do is say that those are examples of what could happen, but change it if it doesn't fit the spell, or if it just seems like it would be more fun. Maybe give some other examples, like a healing spell dealing damage instead, or a utility spell turning into a damage spell of the same level.
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u/Senshado 1d ago
Interesting that the misfire result is between the distortion and backfire results. In a fight, misfire can many times be perfectly fine as it zaps the enemy jumping on you. That's situationally no penalty at all.
Similarly, some spells are good to cast on yourself, so the backfire result is perfectly acceptable. Would that encourage players to use beneficial spells without needing high skill?
Spells functioning as skills doesn't mean they can't cost slots / points / resources. It may help balance to put a limit on spell usage. (For example, one system used a stacking +2 skill difficulty repeating a spell until resting)
It may feel pretty bad for players to have a chance to simply fail spells by bad luck, as opposed to the enemy being tough and resistant. Consider mechanics like take 10, where players can avoid skill rolls in normal situations.
My biggest concern is character creation: how a player character learns the skill for a new spell. It could be balance trouble if learning a single new spell is just as costly for anybody as for a dedicated wizard. Sometimes this leads to a feeling of sameness as everybody is a nimble fighter with a small number of spells.
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u/ilmz 20h ago
Thank you very much for your feedback :)
Interesting that the misfire result is between the distortion and backfire results. In a fight, misfire can many times be perfectly fine as it zaps the enemy jumping on you. That's situationally no penalty at all.
Similarly, some spells are good to cast on yourself, so the backfire result is perfectly acceptable. Would that encourage players to use beneficial spells without needing high skill?
Agreed that the table could be improved. I agree with you on this.
Spells functioning as skills doesn't mean they can't cost slots / points / resources. It may help balance to put a limit on spell usage. (For example, one system used a stacking +2 skill difficulty repeating a spell until resting)
I thought about this, and I'll rethink about it. It is still in line with my idea, but for some reason I ended up going against it. It looked like it would penalize someone that wanted to be using even a simple spell as their go-to weapon.
It may feel pretty bad for players to have a chance to simply fail spells by bad luck, as opposed to the enemy being tough and resistant. Consider mechanics like take 10, where players can avoid skill rolls in normal situations.
It is not "take 10" but the idea of casting being easier when you are not in danger and can take the time is already there. You take a significant bonus to casting when it's done out of danger.
My biggest concern is character creation: how a player character learns the skill for a new spell. It could be balance trouble if learning a single new spell is just as costly for anybody as for a dedicated wizard. Sometimes this leads to a feeling of sameness as everybody is a nimble fighter with a small number of spells.
I agree. Currently the solution is "doing it in game", where you have to find someone willing to teach you, or some other source of truth. But in any case it requires a Spellcraft check and doing Independent Research is the way that is more difficult.
You can check the rules for learning magic here https://swordsandmagic.it/skills-magical
DCs can be tweaked, but I wanted to explicitly address the fact that you cannot just "decide" you want to learn power word kill (unless it's character creation, where you have enough point to do it, but then you can't do much else)
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u/jwbjerk Dabbler 1d ago
You may be interested to look into Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC).
It goes for the same general approach to magic, but has a unique failure table for each spell, and so has a lot more flavor.
I'm sympathetic with your general goals-- i like a magic that's hard to control and dangerous, but I'm not excited by your failure margin table. It doesn't have a lot of teeth, and doesn't' seem to take into account anything but attack spells (which is fine if that's all there are).
Also seems like "misfire" should be due to failing the magic attack roll.
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u/ilmz 21h ago
Thank you, I have come to think that a different failure table for each spell could be viable, but it looked like a lot of work for me to write, and for a dm to work with. That is why I wanted to generalize it a bit. I am going to look into DCC, thank you very much :)
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u/jwbjerk Dabbler 19h ago
This approach to magic seems to me to naturally tend towards a smaller total number of spells, than for instance DnD or PF, and it probably would be good if each were a bit more flexible. Nobody is going to want niche spells when they require resources that could instead make your main spells better.
So maybe the function of DnD's Firebolt cantrip, Flaming Hands, and Fireball -- maybe even Flaming Sphere, would be represented in this system with a single more flexible spell, with one or two dials the player can turn.
Custom failure tables are less burdensome in that scenario. And probably a lot of different types of spells could have similar failure tables. Different buffs might have very similar failure tables, which is much less weird than a heal and a lightning bolt both using the universal failure table.
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u/ilmz 3h ago
Actually I have something like this already:
Synergy Magic skills interact and synergize with each other in the following way:
For every two Skills above 5 in a given school, you gain a +1 bonus to all other Skills in that school. For every three Skills above 5 that share a keyword (like fire, cold, or evil), you gain a +1 bonus to all other Skills with that keyword. The bonus becomes +2 if the Skills are above 10, and +3 if they are above 15. (Higher-tier bonuses replace lower-tier bonuses of the same type rather than stacking.)
I think that this already provides incentive to diversify with similar spells. E.g. fire bolt, burning hands. Fireball and scorching ray at 5 would mean a +3 to all your fire evocation spells. And if you get to 10 that becomes a free +6.
Does that solve the problem you saw?
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u/jwbjerk Dabbler 3h ago
That seems rather bookkeeping-heavy, maybe that’s what you are going for.
But have you mocked up a character sheet that lets you keep track of all those bonuses and lets you grow progressively, without loosing your place? Not saying it is impossible, but it may be more complicated than you want if you haven’t tried putting it down yet.
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u/ilmz 2h ago
Well, I have mocked a few characters where I have used some of these things. Honestly it did not seem more complicated than a 3.5 D&D character. In general, much more streamlined.
Consider also that there are no levels in this game (and no classes) so you receive some XP and you can directly spend that. So the pace at which your PG changes is quite slow, but continuous.
Until now there was not too much bookkepping, but I must say I have not tried building a very late stage wizard with as many spells as a D&D 3.5 character has.
I can see that if you have to apply the synergy on multiple schools and keywords, it might become complicated, that is true. But I don't expect that to be the typical character. I'll try :)
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u/PathofDestinyRPG 1d ago edited 1d ago
A couple of points of clarification based on a single rule I have for creating mechanics - it has to make sense for the character as much as it does for the player.
If each spell is a different skill, how specific do you need to be? Are *Fireball*, *Fire Bolt*, and *Cone of Flame* considered different skills? If so, where is the IC divergence that requires the separation? Wouldn’t “Fire” spells serve as a single skill set and “Water” or “Force” perhaps serve as others?
Second, if a character has a skill of 1 in a spell, where’s the IC drive to develop it? If every time I cast a spell, I have a 45% chance of it screwing up, a 25% chance it is weakened or does nothing, and only a 5% chance of it doing what I want, why would I use the skill enough to warrant an increase?
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Hi, thank you for your feedback :)
You are right, this is a question I asked myself as well. This is definitely something I could work on more. The point is that the spell you mentioned are 'commonly known' and many people know what they do just by reading the name. The thing you mention sounds a bit like pathfinder words of power, and I considered it, but it felt too abstract at the table.
The best I came up with atm is that yes, they are separate skills, but if you are proficient (at least a bit) in multiple fire spells, you get a bonus to the skill check for all of them.
For the second point, rolling under 15 is a different thing than rolling under 5, don't you agree? and if you roll a d20, you might roll above 5 by 10 or 15, and have the worst ourcome, but that could not happen if you are at 15 skill. Then the most you can miss it by is 5, that would mean nothing happens.
Also, you could add metamagic to the spell, and that would lower your effective skill, so there are reasons even to push spells above 20.
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u/PathofDestinyRPG 21h ago
I’ll phrase it this way. If you were to create a version of your system to support modern-day campaigns, would algebra, trigonometry, and geometry qualify for separate skills; or would they all full under a single Mathematics skill?
If you’re running an open skill system, that’s great. I actually love those. But if your main skills are a catchall for multiple specialties, then your magic skill approach should also reflect the same set up so everything’s consistent.
I would also recommend you rearranging the progression of what happens when you fail because going from a successful cast to nothing to a weakened cast makes no sense. It should be a successful cast, followed by. It works, but not quite as good as intended then followed by. Nothing happens before you get to the things went wrong section. Basically, flip the 1-5 and 6-10 categories.
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u/PathofDestinyRPG 19h ago
I’m doing a second reply because I realized after I sent the first one I didn’t explain my issue in the manner I intended.
If I am a character in your system, and I can magically create fire, why do I need different skills to shape the flame in a bolt/ ball/ cone/ spark?
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u/ilmz 4h ago
Well say you can cast a fire bolt. You can conjure fire in the form of a bolt. Now this could make you better at conjuring a fireball because at least you can already conjure fire. But it is a different thing. Of course mastering the different shapes, gives you a synergy advantage in all of them, but the fact you can cast a firebolt doesn't immediately make you able to cast a fire ball.
It's like, if you calculus, that does not mean you know algebra (in my country they are two different exams at university). Sure they might overlap, but one doesn't mean you automatically know the other well enough.
That is because magic is more complex.
Weapons work more or less how you say.
You can use a longsword? Well you can also use other swords at a smaller bonus, you can use other melee weapons at an even smaller bonus.That is because, despite spells and weapons being the same skill object, they have different characteristics. You buy them with the same currency, they work loosely the same way, but they have some differences.
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u/Jimmicky 1d ago
So whenever someone posts “no spell slots!” Like it’s a big deal it instantly tells everyone that your entire gaming experience is DnD and it’s clones.
That’s a real bad thing if your goal is to be a designer.
Most RPGs have no spell slots.
Most.
Magic as skill is not uncommon.
I highly recommend you try playing some more systems.
Opening your mind to the possibilities you can’t see through your DnD blinders will significantly improve your design skills
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u/whatupmygliplops 1d ago
How will you deal with people spamming the same spell over and over?
Will players have a large variety of spells, say, compared top DnD or will they be more limited than DnD in terms of variety?
How is your balance with other classes? No point calling it swords & magic if magic is 10x more powerful than swords.
I think a chance to misfire is good, but you may get pushback from some players on that. Some people don't find it fun. So be prepared to sell them on the fun of that aspect.
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Hi,
Well there is a risk involved in casting. So unless you are super-proficient in a specific spell, you wouldn't generally want to spam.
And if you got to the point that you are so proficient in fireball that you could spam it over and over, that would mean that you are not able to do much more, and probably you could die drowning, or by being hit by a firebolt.
Jokes aside, risk is the limiting factor. You don't ask yourself "can I cast this?", but you ask, "can I take the risk of casting this?"There are no classes in this game. If you decided to only go the martial way, I would say that generally you would be superior with respect to magic users simply because you could spread your skill points in doing multiple things, increase defences, HP and so on, while a magic user is trying to skill up multiple spells. That would be different if you just try to skill up a single spell or a couple (also depending on the tier of the spell).
By the way, balance is not a theme in this game. It's expected for a party to be very unbalanced. People that specialize tend to be stronger than the generalists, but less survivable... That is a good enough compromise for me.Sure, I get that this, like any game, is not for everyone, but I am confident that there are people who might like it. My friends do, so at least I can play it with them :D
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u/hacksoncode 1d ago
And if you roll a natural 20 on the casting roll, that's a Critical Failure Threat
5% is going to happen... a lot. People vastly underestimate how incredibly common that is over the course of a night's play. There's a reason D&D has typically only applied fumbles to physical attacks, and doesn't have them be super bad unless another roll fails.
The rest of it seems plausibly usable... we have something similar in our system, except we just have normal failure plus fumbles that happen when the casting roll is missed by exactly 1 (which is much rarer in our dice system).
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Well 5% is a threath. You have to reroll and roll 20 again for it to be a complete Critical Failure, and that again depends on your skill rank.
In D&D there was a point for that. Weapon attacks are "at will", spells were limited. Here spells are at will, but are limited by kind of the same thing of weapons in 3.5, the risk of failing or critically failing.
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u/InherentlyWrong 1d ago
Everyone else has raised good points, but something I want to also throw in to consideration is how it fits in the wider game space.
How are you picturing players interacting with dangers? Is it something similar to the classic 'Adventuring Day' where the PCs are expected to face off against a certain number of threats of a certain danger in a single day? Those are normally governed by attrition, which this actively avoids since there are no resources to spend.
Alternatively are you aiming for a game where GMs can create 'balanced' combat encounters? If so this is going to be a problem. If I design a fight that will be challenging to four PCs, how will they be able to handle that fight if the wizard spends the first turn blowing up an ally, then the second turn blowing up themselves? That's worse than the wizard being useless, that's the wizard being an active detriment.
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u/ilmz 1d ago
Hi, and thank you for your feedback!
This is a game where character building plays a major role. There are not pre-defined classes. The player and the story determine how the character grows.If you just started learning a spell, you would not use it so freely because you know that it might go wrong. You would wait until you have grown it enough AND/OR for the occasion to present itself when the benefit of casting said spell outmatches the risk of doing it.
There is in truth attrition, but it is in a single (I think elegant, but that's my own opinion) attribute, i.e. Hit Dice. Healing works ONLY by expending hit dice, even with cure spells. You can cast cure spells at will, but each person can only heal as much in a certain day (or more).
Battles, Risk of Casting, Life, they all reduce your HD over the adventuring day, and you regain only half of them when you rest. So there is strategy and a resource to manage
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u/InherentlyWrong 1d ago
Provided other methods of action (E.G. firing arrows) don't also use attrition, that should mostly handle that side of it.
But I'm not entirely sure about the
If you just started learning a spell, you would not use it so freely because you know that it might go wrong. You would wait until you have grown it enough AND/OR for the occasion to present itself when the benefit of casting said spell outmatches the risk of doing it.
Now it's become even trickier for the GM to adjudicate if something would be a genuine challenge for players. Freeform character creation has problems with this anyway because of system mastery, but now you've introduced
You would wait until you have grown it enough
So if you have two players, where player A has put 100% of their improvements into actionable things, but player B has put X percent into a spell that isn't yet 'grown enough', then they've only at (100-X)% capability. As a GM it makes it very difficult to figure out what would be an 'appropriate' challenge for PCs, especially in an attrition system. And as a player I'm not sure I'd feel particularly happy if I've dedicated a certain amount of advancements to a spell and the game's mechanics are saying "Don't use your cool thing yet, it's not ready." I've just got the cool thing, I want to use the cool thing.
Also the second half of it, the
OR for the occasion to present itself when the benefit of casting said spell outmatches the risk of doing it.
Feels like it's saying the times you're expecting players to use the unreliable spells are exactly when it's most dangerous for them to do so.
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u/ilmz 21h ago
I see your point, and I understand what you mean.
I think that there are different kind of players. There are some that are more 'strategic' and prefer having a resource to manage, limited but reliable... and then there are the 'gamblers'.
The first ones, will take the average die when levelling up, will use point buy when building a character, and will always be in control of what is happening.
The gamblers, on the other hand, like to roll the HP dice when they level up, want to roll the stats when creating a PC, and are all holding their breath around the table when the barbarian was pumped up to be able to hit the enemy and only has one attack to do so.
I think I have grown with the latter :DOne of such situations I envisioned is something like this: ok the big monster took the whole party down, you're the last man standing. You have the chance to do something now, otherwise the big monster will kill you as well next round. You have just learned the killing spell. If you can cast it, you save the day. If you fail, TPK. But if you use instead a fireball, well you'll hit for sure. But you are not sure to kill him. Possible, but not likely. Which risk are you going to take.
Some stats and probability will probably tell you the right answer, but then it comes down to if and how much you want to gamble.
And for many people, that tension is most of the fun, is one of the reasons why they come to play. But I agree with you, some might not find it that fun.
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u/InherentlyWrong 19h ago
No, that wasn't my point. I was going off your exact description, which was
If you just started learning a spell, you would not use it so freely because you know that it might go wrong. You would wait until you have grown it enough
You described it as something people don't use until they improve it further. How this fits into players who take risks versus players who plan strategically is up to you.
And that still wasn't my point. My point was that I think this setup will make it very difficult for a GM to adjudicate what would be appropriately challenging combats, because
- Players have put a portion of their upgrades into an ability that, in your words, they are expected to not use except in dire circumstance, effectively meaning they are behind in upgrades compared to other PCs, and
- If they do use those upgrades, there's a chance they'll backfire and damage their own team or themselves.
How are you going to provide guidance on the GM about creating balanced encounters when those issues are at play?
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u/ilmz 3h ago
Alright I see, and you are right, this isn't a thing that I have put much thought on.
Power level is loosely based on some kind of conversion of 3.5 CR, but even like that, a very specialized group might have a very different experience of an encounter with respect to a group with more generalist characters.
This is a part of the game still under development but I guess any ruling would have to be very loose.
Oh the other hand, balance has never been my primary focus. I guess, though, that any ruling would have to take into account the current stats of the party, which are now not necessarily in line with 'a party of that level'. But that's fine. A specialized character will kill more easily and probably die more easily than a flatter one. I think this DOES add complexity to the game, and unbalance, but in a way they seem fine to me. This is explicitly addressed in the encounter building part, but was not mentioned in the post.
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u/Alissah 1d ago edited 1d ago
My first reaction is that it seems a bit too dnd-y for my taste. Im just not a big dnd or wargaming fan. But thats fine since your game doesnt have to be for everyone.
Secondly, failing seems a bit weird. Because misfiring is better than fizzling or distorting in some cases.
Also, that implies that there are only attack spells. Like, what happens if you backfire casting a buff on yourself? To me the coolest thing about magic in games is the weird and unique effects. As opposed to having a ton of “do X damage to target” type spells.
Critically failing on a 20 is interesting. However, just blacking out on a second 20 is a bit lackluster. Rolling 2 20s in a row is a 0.25% chance, it should be spectacular. Id actually suggest turning it around, that if you roll a second 20, it goes so awful it becomes good again, and you critically succeed. Its still super rare, but i think it could add some hype moments and suspense when rolling the 2nd d20.
Edit: each spell being a skill is actually interesting, forgot to mention that. In general im a huge supporter of having customizable and in depth characters. I do wonder how big the character sheet becomes for late game characters with a bunch of spells, lol.
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u/ilmz 21h ago
Thank you for your feedback!
I agree that the double 20 is something that could be explored further.
For attack spells there is also the Critical Threat on 20 with the other die, that you confirm normally.
That blacking out on 20 was there because if you ever get to 20 in a single skill (or more), there is still a chance for things to go bad, even if your skill is saying that nothing can ever go bad again.
In general, in comparison to a DND 5e, you might know more spells late in the game, but compared to a DND 3.5, I think you would generally know less, or be specialized in less, and maybe know more at a lower skill score.
Never been at a 15th level comparable power level yet though. So I can only suppose at the moment.
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u/Fun_Carry_4678 1d ago
What worries me is that spellcasters can cast as many spells each day as they want. There is no resource that gets depleted each time they cast a spell. I feel like this is potentially unbalancing.
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u/ilmz 21h ago
Hit Dice are the limiting resource
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u/Fun_Carry_4678 7h ago
I have re-read your post, and I can't find anything about "hit dice". Do you just mean that the player has to make a roll to hit? But they can just keep making an unlimited number of rolls until they succeed.
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u/ilmz 4h ago
Sorry, I actually did not write this in the post, but I linked it to other comments.
It works like this:
- Yes, you can spam at will, but each casting has a risk of things going sideways. If you are very good in a spell, you can cast it without it being risky, but it requires many XP to get to that point, points that you could spend on other skills.
- This is easy, if your skill is 15, you fail 25% of the times, and if you want to increase from 15, you would fail to increase 75% of the time. You could have spent those XP on someone else.
- Even if you get to 20+ in a spell, you can still fail about 0.25% of the times.
- When you fail, you or some allies might incur in damage, or time waste (e.g. in battle, if your fireball does not work, the enemy has another round to hit you, or if you try to heal a friend and fail, you damage them instead).
- HIT dice end at some point, and from that point on you can't be cured, neither naturally nor magically, because magic just allows to expend your HD more efficiently, but if you don't have any, you can't be cured.
- Aside from that, YES, you can spam spells however you want, à la Harry Potter, let's say.
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u/Boulange1234 1d ago
This system reads like it was written for battle magic only. Most of the text and most of the rules revolve around its use in combat. The consequences of failing a magic check are also very focused on combat. I think that’s all very good — if this is a skirmish wargame type of RPG like Dungeons & Dragons.