More spells per mage

[Sosthenes]

Let's say my setting has a lot of spells. Even beginning mages might know about 20 of them good enough to cast them. I can simulate this a bit by just making the lesser known ones weak enough so that they cost very little (once the players knows them better, they can "upgrade" them to more powerful ones). And of course I can give out more points to everyone at character creation.

But are there any other ideas about this? Cheaper spells if bought as a package? Spells given for free, but the cost used as the base of a casting penalty (cf. HERO)? Free spells but multiple casting skills (one per spell a la GURPS is probably out of the question given the cost structure and the lack of "Magery", but maybe one per "school" of magic?)?

[imported_Rasyr]

One of the core precepts of Novus is that spells are learnable things. The core rules require spending Character Points to learn them (as well as the skill to cast them).

However, you can always go in a different direction.

For example, you could more classifications of magic, each with its own skill, and then just give 1 point's worth of spell per rank (i.e. a spell that costs 2 Spell points to cast is a 2 point spell and requires 2 ranks, so with 2 ranks, he could have a 1 point and a 2 point spell. Plus you could give additional ranks based on stats.

You could go with something akin to Rolemaster Spell Lists, where each rank in the list determines the highest level spell known on that list. Each list is learned separately, and is a separate skill.

You could say that the full Mage type character starts with 15 free spells, the hybrid starts with 10.

There are a large number of possibilities.

Now, more information about your magic system would allow for more accurate suggestions...

[Sosthenes]

I got no problem with each skill being learnable, but with the standard system, if I give out enough points to make multiple spells possible the non-magicians get a bit too powerful.

But you're right, so let's give an overview of the magic system. I'm trying my hands on a Novus conversion of Germany's "Dark Eye" system, to sell it to my players. Said system has grown with every edition and currently looks like a bloated cross between WFRP and GURPS (point-based, professions, lots of skills). Currently we're running a HERO conversion of that, and with all the house rules and customer powers, it looks a lot like Novus, just with a more needlessly complicated spell construction system

Academy of Mental Puissance:
Core spells (7): Charm Person +7, Dispel Charms +5, Cause Fear +7, Leech Mana +4, Hold Person +6, Compel Truth +6, Sleep +7
Other spells (14): Analyze Magic +2, Boost Stats +2, Constrain Movement +3, Telepathy +2, Blast +3, Hallucination +2, Dominate Person +4, Cure Poison +2, Change Memory +2, Detect Magic +4, Exorcism +4, Blur Memory +2, Mass Fear +2, Repulsion +2

So 21 spells that are known to most students. For context, you also get 37 other skills, languages and scripts. With Novus skills being much more coarsely grained, there's simply no balance here. Although that might be another solution, just bloat the skill list a bit to provide some balance. This is definitely a setting where a lore skill or a language isn't considered wasted.

There are two things I like about this and that I wouldn't mind to carry over into a conversion: Mages know a wide variety of spells and aren't equally proficient with each. So bonus points for any system which lets me keep it that way. And where it doesn't take countless hours and/or fiat judgements to convert the actual spells (Novus really wins here already.).

For my HERO conversion, I settled with "free" spells, so the PCs don't have to buy them as powers. Between the other guys getting "killing attacks" via their equipment, the cost of the mana pool and all the skills required it balances out quite well.
So every spell is a skill. By generally reducing the cost of skills in this HERO campaign and HERO's "skill bonus" mechanism (e.g. "+2 to all divination spells"), this works out pretty well. The spread between minimum and optimum ability isn't that high, though. It looks a lot like GURPS magery in play, where you try to get your INT and Magery high enough so that you just have to buy each spell for 1 (or 1/2) points, maybe with some additional emphasis on the spells that are really hard to cast.

So for Novus, I'm okay with not being able to model that every spell has its own level of mastery. If at all necessary, I can always create basic and advanced versions of the same spell. Avoiding instant mastery for any spell that you just learned is a nice feature, but not entirely necessary. Given that training time wasn't stringently enforced in the original, given enough experience points you could ramp that up unrealistically fast anyways. But I'm reluctant to part with the sheer amount of spells.

Although it seems that Novus' starting power level actually might be closer to the D&D idiom, and other games aren't quite that much zero to hero. So a few extra points at the beginning might not hurt.

[imported_Rasyr]

Hmm.......

Now, granted this is just off the top of my head......

Novus already had the Spellcasting Skill, and it limits to 2 instances of that skill already....

So, how about this........

1) No more than 2 instances of Spellcasting; 1 for Core Spells, 1 for Other Spells. These skill become the BASE for casting spells...

2) To This Base you Add Specializations. A Major Adept Starts with 30 Specialization Points, and gets an additional 15 Specialization Points each level.
A Minor Adept starts with 20 Specialization Points, and gets 10 per level. A Semi Adept starts 10 Specialization Points, and gets 5 per level.

3) Specialization Points are then used to place individual Specialization bonuses into specific Spells, so that you would end up with something like this Presuming you purchased 3 ranks in Core Spellcasting, and 1 ranks in Other Spellcasting, and a +2 Stat bonus

Academy of Mental Puissance:
Core spells (+5): Charm Person +2, Dispel Charms +3, Cause Fear +1, Leech Mana +2, Hold Person +3, Compel Truth +1, Sleep +3
Other spells (+3): Analyze Magic +1, Boost Stats +1, Constrain Movement +1, Telepathy +1, Blast +2, Hallucination +1, Dominate Person +1, Cure Poison +1, Change Memory +1, Detect Magic +2, Exorcism +1, Blur Memory +1, Mass Fear +1, Repulsion +1

So, Dispel Charms has a total bonus of +8, While Boost Stats has a total Bonus of +4
Under these rules, I would limit Core spells AND Specializations to no greater than +3 per level (Core Spells would be Favored, Other Spells would use the Standard Cost.

As I said, this is just off the top of my head, and quite likely needs a lot of tweaking, but it would at least give you a starting point on adapting and adjusting that spell system to Novus.

[Sosthenes]

I like the idea with the two skills. I'm note quite sure that I'd need to retain that much of a granularity. "Well-known" and "somewhat proficient" might be enough.

I thought about a cost reduction for spells that were only usable with the secondary skill, but that doesn't seem to work mathematically (the cost of a secondary skill would outstrip any savings). No costs for "secondary spells" at all would make it cheaper to max out the secondary skill instead of "upgrading" individual spells to work with the major skill.