Malazan book of the fallen

[Fidoric]

I have been thinking of adapting Novus to that great setting. Mostly I think I will have to make rules for explosives and magic.
Magic will definitively need some changes as I think most mages use their warren in a primal way with less spells than usual.
I was anticipating lots of work to achieve something cool but it seems that most of what I need is in LN1.

At the moment, I think I will give each Mage access to one warren by default.
He would have to use a magecraft-warren to open his mind to the power and be able to use it (perhaps only in case of casting under stress). I wonder if this roll could not be used to determine how many SP are available each round for casting, something like 1 or 2 SPs for a TN of 15 plus 1 SP for each 3 points above.
You can then complement your SPs with hit points if needed. I will probably use a hit point drain system as well. I can imagine spending several rounds gathering power for high-power effects. A cap on sustainable SPs would be needed too with risk of serious wounding or ill-effect if you go above.

As I see it, each Mage will have access to attack, defend and teleport spell bases for his warren. Each warren will then give access to some other spell bases (eg. Denul gives access to healing and resize, Meanas to Conceal...). Each Mage could also know some tricks (=spell) that he knows how to cast quickly and easily. My main concern at the moment is that using spell bases as is, mages won't be able to do much before leveling up due to the high TN. Maybe I could simply get rid of the base 12 for calculating CTNs ? Most of the time, mages then use the improv column to calculate their CTNs.

Those are only my first thoughts and I will try to think through this tomorrow and hopefully make things clearer.
I will welcome any comments on this.

Moderator Note: Title corrected by request

[Fidoric]

Argh! The topic title should read Malazan and not Malayan! Damned automatic correction! Any way to change that? 

[imported_Rasyr]

I am not familiar with Malazan, so you might have to explain a little bit about what the setting is to me.

Now, if I were building a system for using Spell Bases as the core of a magical system (and I have given this some thought, and in fact I think I may have mentioned it before), there are a couple of ways of going about this, but this would be my initial take on it, based upon what is in your first post.

You could create a table, that grants bonuses or minuses to specific Bases (+2 to -2; sum of all modifiers = 0), and then give each Warren (I would guess that this is the equivalent to School) certain Spell Bases, and the rest would be more along the UnWarrened. You would have 1 skill for Warren bases, and 1 for those not part of the Warren. (the skill bonuses would be modified at the time of casting by the Base Modifiers.

You would then allow the characters to start with 3 Spell Bases (Warren Bases only), every additional Warren Base costs 3 points (one time cost) and non-Warren Bases cost 5 points (one time costs). When building a spell's TN, I would perhaps lower the base of the TN from 12 to 10 for those Bases belonging to the Warren (but not the others). I would also allow the Warren Bases to use the Codified costs, while the non-Warren Bases use the Improv column.

This allows for more powerful spells being accessible to those within a given Warren, but not overly  powerful

[Fidoric]

Thank you Tim both for editing the title and your answers.

In fact Warrens are more than simple schools. They are other worlds / dimensions / times from whence the magic users draw their power. Each warren is aspected (healing, land, fire, ice...) and as I see it you have two ways to use the power you draw. You can unleash raw power to destroy something for example or use it in a more refined way to obtain specific effects tied to the warren aspect.
As they are true worlds, you can also open gates to go to them. Survival is not guaranteed though as some of them are ill-suited to support human life.

I will have to test the base TNs modification to find the right feeling. In this world, magic is very powerful and a good battle Mage is likely to incinerate a squad with a simple attack. Not sure that's the way to go for a RPG though. Your suggestion to use improv column for non-warren would be hard to implement as basically you can only produce whatever effects your warren allows (no wall of fire using the warren of the land for example).

Your suggestion may become handy later because there are Mage and high Mage and the latter have several advantages (likely access to purest power, highest effects, able to handle more power safely...). codified costs could be used for them maybe... I am not at that point in my reflection yet.

Thanks again for your help.
I am still open for any comment / suggestion.

[imported_Rasyr]

ah... in that case let me make an additional suggest....

In my own version of casting only using Bases, I was going to have each school be tied to certain manifestations. And it sounds as if your Warrens are closer to that than to the school/not-school idea I mentioned above...

In my idea, basically if a spell is cast using the Manifestation associated with the caster's School, then he would use the Codified Column for determining TN. If he was attempting to do something outside his manifestation, then he would use the Improv column. Spellcasting skills would still be based upon Schools as the schools are what teaches/determines the caster's basic manifestation.

Using this, the modifiers per Spell Base are not actually needed, except to show a basic affinity or difficulty in casting certain types of spells (i.e. Attack Spells might get +2 while Defense spells get -2 for a school whose belief system includes making attacks over defending -- i.e. think of it how Hard Martial Arts favor attacking moves over the more defensive/disarming/entangling moves favored by Soft Martial Arts).

[Fidoric]

Here is the first draft of my attempt to adapt  Novus rules to Malazan setting magic.
I have just thrown all my ideas together so don't expect a finished document. Both contents and forms will have to be much improved.
Nothing has been playtested as yet and all the numerical values are just rough estimates.

I am eagerly waiting for feedbacks.

[attachment[/attachment]

[imported_Rasyr]

Now remember, this is just off a fast read through and is prejudiced by my own opinions on how I believe Novus should work...

Now, since I don't know the setting, you have take what I say with that in mind as well, my opinions are more on the mechanics, not any particular setting features.

• While Mage might be a Talent, I think that Cadre Mage and High Mage might work better as Training Paths, as it seems that they are more along the lines of increasing existing abilities based upon skill levels, than they are actual Talents.
  
  
• Magecraft -- Not sure I like the idae of Magecraft being used for such things as blasts and shields.  Seems a bit much for me, especially since it is also used to draw and store energy from the Warrens. There is also the fact that there are actually Spell bases that cover these things, so it seems to be duplicating the spell bases.
  
  
• Magecraft -- I do like the idea of using it to draw in and store mana (essentially), but if I read this right, you have them doing it separately for every single Warren that they know.  that could be a bit unwieldy in the long runs.
  
  
• Magecraft -- Instead of making them pay for each Spell base separately, I would say each rank of Magecraft grants access to 1 spell base for use with the given Warren. I would make the Universal, Attack, and Defend spell bases be the first ones learned (i.e. when learning a new warren, you MUST be able to purchase at least the first 3 ranks in it). This way, Magecraft would essentially retain the focus and purpose for which it was intended, which is to be a  measure of magical knowledge and learning (and not tied to actually casting spells of any sort). Additional Note: The Blasts have the potential, if I read them right, of being extremely unbalancing against other classes...
  
  
• Magecraft & Spell Bases -- idea!--- perhaps have each spell base cost 1 more point than the one before it (i.e. Universal costs 0 CP to learn, Attack costs 1 CP, Defend costs 2 CP, etc..) that makes each spell base progressively harder to learn, but doesn't make them too unreachable (and don't forget, the cost of skill ranks increase as well, so while low levels will have a minor spurt of growth, that will pan out and slow down in short order...
  
  
• The spell bases accessible per warren list -- this looks more like something along the lines of the Training Paths, like I said above, as each "level" grants access to more Spell bases. You could even have Spell bases outside the "approved list" either cost more, or like I suggested above have them use the Improv costs, while those on the allowed list of bases use the pre-made column...
  
  

Overall, it looks very interesting, I think...[/list]

[Fidoric]

Tim, thanks a lot for your advices.

• Creating Training Paths to simulate Mage careers is on my to-do list. I think you are right. There are no fundamental differences between the different mage ratings, only a graduation in power. In that case, i wonder if I should equate the Mage talent with the Major Adept talent (in term of CP cost) in order to create classes for example while letting it be learned any time, not only at character creation.
• Using magecraft for raw effects was my first idea because those abitilities seem ubiquitous in the novels. There is a point I have neglected though. Nearly all mages in the books are either from a military background or very high ranking mages. I think your take on this is better than my initial project. I may end up using Magecraft as magic knowledge skill + ability to draw and store power, leaving all magical manipulations under the spellcraft skill. Besides, that could allow me to more easily standardize the CTN for all effects.
• Attaching Magecraft and Spellcraft to each warren may seem a little cumbersome but most mages have acces to one or tow warrens. There are exceptions though who may access as many as 12 warrens... So I see your point. Maybe with the modification you have suggested, if Magecraft is limited to drawing and storing power I can have an only skill for every known warrens simulating that your body and your soul are trained to draw and store alien energies in general, not only one king of energy.
• i like your suggestion. I think I may even discard my initial automatic attack/defend/portal. all mages are not necessarily battle mages after all. it can also be used to further refined each warren, some being easily used to attack, some other to defend... Using Magecraft to determine the number of knowable spell bases is seducing but I may have to adapt the number (1 + 1 per 5 ranks in magecraft ?) because there are only a handful of spell bases per warren at the moment.
• Regarding the power of Blasts, I am well-aware of their unbalancing effect. It is one of my main reservations in my first point. In the novels, Mages are able to easily incinerate their targets leaving only dust and charred bones behind. That's a little to harsh for a RPG I think. Maybe (Certainly) I could reduce their DR and rely on boon points to gain specific high effects (3 boons to affect a large zone or use a high-warern power...).
• Regarding the cost of spell bases, your suggestion is brilliant. That way, each mage has potentially access to 2-4 spell bases to begin with giving him some flexibility. On the other hands, if they access new warrens at a later time, the cost of new spell bases will be high enough.
• I will definitively create specific training paths. Maybe the number of spell bases know could be a prerequisite to access a high mage rating along with magecraft and spellcraft skill bonuses. Taht way, when you reach a certain level of proficiency, you can spend some DPs and unlock new abilities. I wonder if accessing a new mage rating (becoming a cadre amge for example) and paying some DPs should automatically grant access to new abilities (improved power draw...) or only give a latent ability and require that you pay for each new one?

Thanks once again. I will go back to work on this ASAP, my working week promising to be quite hectic...
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