Let's discuss magic in RPGs

[Norfleet]

I think this is what limited the true intent behind a Wizard (AD&D specifically) in computer gaming over the years. You had a slew of spells, and many seemed rather benign, or limited, but the reality is that they were extremely powerful for those who thought past simple combat application.

The problem with D&D magic is that there are a number of generally "useless" spells that basically completely break the world. Harmless things like "Create Food" completely invalidate feudal economics. "Create Water" is also pretty devastating when used outside the box, allowing a mob of level one casters to clear nearly any dungeon by simply flooding it with swimming pools worth of created water.

And then, of course, you have combat spells that are normally non-damaging getting used in weird ways. It used to be that Wall Of Force listed no width, so the consequences of colliding with one endwise was naturally rather gruesome, as the victim's body would be bisected by a 2 dimensional object and instantly cut in half. This is why wall of force now lists a width. Fireballs also used to be a lot more interesting: In the old days, fireballs were fixed volume constructs that conformed to the shape of the enclosure, rather than simply being dumb-radius, so you could incinerate others (or yourself) beyond the normal range by detonating it in enclosed spaces to create a shaped-charge blast. Lightning bolts used to bounce around. And other fun things I can't recall at the moment. Most of which have been lost in an attempt to simplify the rules into a game rather than a physical simulation.

[UltraFan123]

The problem with D&D magic is that there are a number of generally "useless" spells that basically completely break the world. Harmless things like "Create Food" completely invalidate feudal economics. "Create Water" is also pretty devastating when used outside the box, allowing a mob of level one casters to clear nearly any dungeon by simply flooding it with swimming pools worth of created water.

Somewhat related to this, another thing that breaks the immersion is how come spellcasters aren't always the ones in high positions of authority and social status when you stop and think just how ******** their abilities are.

Druids at levels as low as 5 can greatly increase the potential growth of an entire harvest, meaning that no village or town will ever go hungry as long as there's a single druid around casting [Plant Growth] just once every 6 months or so.

A level 1 cleric can purify food and drink as a level 0 osiron that can be cast an unlimited times per day, meaning that even the most measly priest can prevent everyone in the community from ever getting sick from food or water poisoning.

Likewise, [Mending] is a level 0 spell that can be cast by pretty much all spellcasters and can repair basically any object that isn't magical. A single level 1 caster of any tradition can do the equipment maintenance of the armor and weapons of an entire army squad.

Even the "weakest" magic can dramatically change the social scenery of a medieval setting.

[Norfleet]

A level 1 cleric can purify food and drink as a level 0 osiron that can be cast an unlimited times per day, meaning that even the most measly priest can prevent everyone in the community from ever getting sick from food or water poisoning.

Create Water is just plain broken, yes. A level 1 cleric creates 2 gallons of water every 6 seconds. That's 7200 gallons per hour. An Olympic swimming pool is 660K gallons. A party of 6 clerics working 16 hours can fill a huge swimming pool in a day, and these are just common level 1s.

[Stack of Turtles]

A level 1 cleric can purify food and drink as a level 0 osiron that can be cast an unlimited times per day, meaning that even the most measly priest can prevent everyone in the community from ever getting sick from food or water poisoning.

Create Water is just plain broken, yes. A level 1 cleric creates 2 gallons of water every 6 seconds. That's 7200 gallons per hour. An Olympic swimming pool is 660K gallons. A party of 6 clerics working 16 hours can fill a huge swimming pool in a day, and these are just common level 1s.

Doesn't that take a spell slot? I'm pretty sure it's not a cantrip.

[Norfleet]

Doesn't that take a spell slot? I'm pretty sure it's not a cantrip.

Create Water is level 0, so no, it doesn't.

[Stack of Turtles]

Doesn't that take a spell slot? I'm pretty sure it's not a cantrip.

Create Water is level 0, so no, it doesn't.

They must have changed it afterward then.

[Norfleet]

They must have changed it afterward then.

That's still the current version, if that's what you mean. In the old days, "level 0" didn't quite exist, but a lot of things were made level 0 without thought for what impact it would have if spammed.

[UltraFan123]

In 3.5 d20srd it's an osiron: https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/magic/spel ... eate-water

This spell generates wholesome, drinkable water, just like clean rain water. Water can be created in an area as small as will actually contain the liquid, or in an area three times as large—possibly creating a downpour or filling many small receptacles.

Note: Conjuration spells can’t create substances or objects within a creature. Water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon. One cubic foot of water contains roughly 8 gallons and weighs about 60 pounds.

[Stack of Turtles]

They must have changed it afterward then.

That's still the current version, if that's what you mean. In the old days, "level 0" didn't quite exist, but a lot of things were made level 0 without thought for what impact it would have if spammed.

[Norfleet]

Oh, they changed it AGAIN.

[UltraFan123]

I was thinking about posting this in the Starfinder Afterlight thread but I think I've flooded that thread enough with my ramblings about the setting, and also because this post I want to make is about how fantastical magic interacts in a sci-fi RPG setting like Starfinder.

For starters, the ones who designed this setting do recognize that - at first glance - a myriad of worlds that have stuff like super sonic trains and cryo guns would have no need for magic, yet the only reason that the train can break the sonic barrier is because of anti-gravity and magnetic spells that were enchanted into it during its construction, and cryo weapons would never work without an arcane refrigerant powering it.

"Science never replaced magic, both evolved together"

This is the motto of the Starfinder setting, and I admit, the designers were really cooking some decent stuff here.

While regular "mundane" science is good and reliable, it doesn't hurt to enchant it with something to complement it. This way, the technology not only lasts longer and has its properties enhanced, but it also ensures that it can continue functioning to some capacity in the event that it breaks. The opposite was applied to magic items as well; many staples of fantasy like healing potions were transformed into serums that can be installed in armor injectors so that they are automatically juiced into your veins when your HP decreases too much.

Even going beyond how magi-tech influences the mechanics, this setting also does a good job portraying how a sci-fi galaxy would be affected by magic becoming mainstream. Like how the old wizard arcane tomes that were used to record their spells are now magic appbooks that anyone can download into their mobile devices from the local infosphere which is the setting's internet. Likewise, there are still arcane academies that anyone with enough money can attend, but lots of wannabe mages can just find pirated magic appbooks that can teach anyone who wants to learn how to throw lightning bolts and **** like that.

Because of this, most worlds require spellcasters to always have a "mage permit" from said arcane academies with their ID that can prove how their education was legitimate and thus were trained to use their power responsibly. But regardless of how someone learned magic, all spellcasters carry the weight of having hundreds of extra laws and regulations made just for them, since anyone who can casually use something like [Charm Person] on others is obviously a potentially dangerous individual. Some establishments even have "No Magic" signs on their doors.

Now when it comes to the Pact Worlds portion of the Starfinder setting - which is basically the "Sword Coast" or "Inner Sea Region" of this RPG - there is a relative bias that favors technology over magic because of a massive in-lore divine revelation that allowed these worlds to travel faster than light, this divine revelation being the Drift.

If you don't feel like getting into too much Starfinder lore, I'm putting this in a collapsible tab.

► Show Spoiler

Basically, the Drift was a galaxy-wide dream that was sent by the in-story Machine God, this dream was extremely vivid and contained the schematic design of a rocket drive that would allow ships to travel faster than light. It would've normally taken mortal scientists thousands upon thousands of more years to develop these drift drives, but the Machine God decided to intervene and gave everyone in the galaxy - both good and bad - the ability to interact with each other faster than they would've normally been able to.

This is the main reason why the technomancers are the only spellcasters in the Pact Worlds that are considered "trendy", and other forms of magic-users like priests and psychics are considered archaic and outdated.

However, this setting recognizes that this Pact World bias only exists because of the Machine God's intervention. There are other parts of the galaxy that for some reason or another either never received the divine dream of the Drift, or chose to ignore it. These worlds instead use the same arcane portals that are so ubiquitous in traditional fantasy settings to travel between worlds, and they first reach other planets by creating massive city-sized generational ships that can't go faster than light, and so they usually take hundreds of years to reach a new planet outside of their native solar system, but when these ships do reach a new habitable planet, the mages begin to work in new local portals so that this planet light-years away from their home world can now be just a few steps away instead.

This more magically-inclined method of planetary colonization does take much longer and is riskier than drift travel, but when it succeeds, it results in an intergalactic society that is far better connected than the ones that rely on drift ships that take days or weeks to reach another solar system. And if not for the Drift dream of the Machine God, this is may have been the method that the Pact Worlds and other drift travel capable civilizations would've defaulted to.

Overall, many ideas in Starfinder have good potential, even though there are also some ideas that I don't like and think are pretty ********, but I want to expand on those another day in another post.

[Norfleet]

Some establishments even have "No Magic" signs on their doors.

And I bet those places are the hotspots of all the Active Caster incidents, too. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a wand is a good guy with a wand.

[Tweed]

Wanted to like magic in Pagan. I understand what they were going for, but there either wasn't enough time or talent to get it done. Magic schools that were all very different from one another in how the spells were made, cast, and their roles. Writers managed to squeeze out a little bit of lore for some of the schools, but nowhere near what should have been. Originally, the Avatar would have learned Tempestry, but time constraints and Richard's idiocy on making the game an action RPG any hope of Ultima 8 being a good game. In the end there's 3 or 4 useful spells and the rest are plot coupons or entirely worthless. Great aesthetic and soundtrack though.

Ultima Online kinda sorta tried to make amends there when they added in Necromancy in Age of Shadows. The spell school can function on its own or it can be coupled with magery for more fun and games and even lends itself to melee fighters as well. Doesn't have anywhere near the breadth of spells that magery does though. Magery itself in UO is a pretty good spell system even though its undergone dramatic changes over the life of the game.

People have already mentioned Gothic. One of the best things Gothic's spell system does is make you feel ******* powerful. Each circle is more powerful than the last until you're an OP killing machine...unless it's Gothic 2 and they nerfed the **** out of it and then you can only be an engine of death in the last two chapters unless you use a mod. The fluff in advancing each circle makes it feel like you're learning arcane secrets as well and I really wish more games did that kind of stuff. Gothic 3 retains that power feel, but does some really ******** balance **** that can fortunately be undone with mods. One of the mods I used in my last Gothic II play added a few nice utilitarian spells, nothing game breaking, but things that a mage ought to be able to do.

[J1M]

@UltraFan123 what is the objective of the machine god? Why can't the drift dreamers just use portals too?

[maidenhaver]

Magic is the best explanation for the preservation of tech and machinery, in magitech settings. You see in our world that it only takes one brain drain our generation to set us back decades. Even a century. Machines break down from improper maintenance, people forget how to fix them, etc.

[UltraFan123]

what is the objective of the machine god? Why can't the drift dreamers just use portals too?

That's a very good question. This is one of the topics that's related to one of the things I dislike about this setting. That being narrative inconsistencies like the one you pointed out.

When it comes to the motivations of the Machine God for sharing the Drift to the galaxy, it's framed as one of the in-story mysteries that is purposely left vague, just like another massive event that transpired before the Drift dream known as "The Gap", this gap being a supernatural amnesia that affected both mortals and even divinities everywhere in the setting's multiverse. One day without explanation or warning, the planet of Golarion - the world of the Pathfinder setting - just vanished out of nowhere, and at that very moment was when The Gap took effect and everyone's memories were erased everywhere.

I don't mind this gap as a narrative tool, it would've been the perfect in-story explanation for why several civilizations seemed to forget magical technologies that would've come in handy in a sci-fi setting, but the designers of the Starfinder setting didn't used it like that. The Gap is just there, and the narrative inconsistencies remain as that.

To give an example; my favorite faction of this setting, the Azlanti Star Empire. According to both the Starfinder and Pathfinder lore, the azlant were the absolute peak of the human race and they are such uberpowerful arcanists that back when the world of Golarion was in its stone age the azlant were capable of creating arcane portals to connect not only the planets orbiting their star, but also to other planets far away in other arms of the galaxy. They somehow had the capacity to reach planets outside of the Golarion system and create portals in them without the need of generational ships that took centuries to arrive in said planets. Yet one day Golarion was hit by a meteor and the azlant in that planet were all wiped out, and when this happened, the azlant that had settled in other planets were left stranded there because the portals stopped working.

If the portals were all mainly powered by some magical source in Golarion, I kind of get it. However, we are supposed to believe that not only was a human race capable of purely magical galactic teleportation unable to stop a measly meteor from hitting their planet, but also that the only azlant in the universe who knew how to create arcane portals were all conveniently congregated in Golarion when said meteor fell. Because not a single azlant stranded in other planets knew how to make more arcane portals.

These stranded azlant were all so lost without the arcane portals that only one extra-Golarion colony survived, and this colony spent dozens of thousands of years without rediscovering how to make arcane portals despite supposedly being so uberpowerful and **** like that. They eventually had to settle for the Drift drives when the dream of the Machine God hit them. And no, the azlant didn't forgot how to make the arcane portals that teleported them millions of light years away because of The Gap. They forgot because they forgot.

More ******** still, both the civilizations that use drift engines and that use arcane portals have come into contact with one another, some trade with one another, yet the idea of combining both drift engine and arcane portal technologies never crossed their minds.

Why? I don't know. The writers of this setting apparently don't know either.

How easy it would be to use the faster-than-light rockets to reach a new planet and create an arcane portal there, yet this idea has not crossed the mind of a single in-story person so far.

Paizo's medieval fantasy setting of Pathfinder also suffers from narrative inconsistencies and plot holes like this, but you would expect that a science-oriented sci-fi setting would have more intelligent characters on average.

And another aspect of Starfinder that I dislike is how the classifications that divide magic systems into "arcane", "divine", "psychic", and the like no longer exists. The reasoning given is that the general understanding of magic has become so advanced that now all magic falls into the same category. "Magic is magic" is what the designers of this universe say, which I think is total ********. If anything, a myriad of worlds that see magic with a more scientific lense would in fact create MORE categories to divide magic into, rather than lumping everything together like a normie would. We're supposed to accept that someone who obtains power through study, someone who summons the power of a God, and someone who's mind has the potential to create supernatural phenomena are the exact same thing.

You may also remember how my previous post pointed out how technomancers are considered the only relevant spellcasters in the Pact Worlds setting while other casters are considered outdated and unnecessary. How can this be if the people in this universe think that all magic-users are the same? Like hell if I know.

On top of all that - though this following point might be obvious for a modern RPG - "progressive" wokeness is sprinkled almost everywhere. The good humanoids of the Pact Worlds are represented by a faceless democracy were everyone in the local system has equal voting rights regardless if the voters are malicious or stupid. While the evil humanoids of the Azlanti Star Empire are expansionists who are loyal to the powerful azlant throne. I would've been somewhat alright with this if not for the fact that the non-human aliens can have their own militaristic empires yet they aren't depicted as evil. Case in point is the reptilian vesk race of the Veskarium Empire. There is literally no difference between the behaviors and beliefs of the vesk and the azlant, yet the vesk are "honorable allies" to the Pact Worlds while the azlant are "heartless colonizers".

I think many of us know at this point that, more often than not, non-human races in modern RPGs are meant to be self-inserts of some real-life "oppressed minority" like furries/scalies. So the designers of this setting are saying that humans/Whites having autocratic monarchies is bad but aliens/******* having them is good.

Not to mention other **** like this:

20260218_102823.jpg

However, like I said in my previous post, I think that Starfinder's implementation of magic in a sci-fi universe has more good ideas than bad ones, and can be a good source of inspiration if anyone likewise wants to create a "space magic" fantasy setting.

[rusty_shackleford]

[roldet]

I dislike expandable spell/skill slots and resting to replace them. Just use mana/stamina pools or cooldowns like a normal person

It feels awkward to rest so just my paladin get their spells back while no one is injured in my party. Resting should only be for buffing with camping skills or healing from injury/stress.

[Magick]

Reminds me a little bit of:

[asf]

i am still to see an interesting spellcraft system that isnt a bunch of gimmicks

[rusty_shackleford]

i am still to see an interesting spellcraft system that isnt a bunch of gimmicks

magic is a gimmick

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I dislike expandable spell/skill slots and resting to replace them. Just use mana/stamina pools or cooldowns like a normal person

It's there as an alternative to cooldown timers so that you can only use an extremely powerful spell once rather than being able to spam it repeatedly. So the designers can now design spells that feel really powerful, otherwise they would have to reign it in.

[J1M]

I dislike expandable spell/skill slots and resting to replace them. Just use mana/stamina pools or cooldowns like a normal person

It's there as an alternative to cooldown timers so that you can only use an extremely powerful spell once rather than being able to spam it repeatedly. So the designers can now design spells that feel really powerful, otherwise they would have to reign it in.

I don't understand why any game would allow you to rest for more than a few minutes in a random location. It's bad game design (removes tension) and breaks immersion (you would not be able to actually rest there).

JRPGs solved this with save crystals decades ago, but there's still this weird resistance to making full rests only available in certain places.

In any game with discretionary resting, I find myself picking character building options that are reset by short rests or otherwise finding ways to stretch my resting interval to infinity. Not doing this feels like cheating.

[roldet]

I dislike expandable spell/skill slots and resting to replace them. Just use mana/stamina pools or cooldowns like a normal person

It's there as an alternative to cooldown timers so that you can only use an extremely powerful spell once rather than being able to spam it repeatedly. So the designers can now design spells that feel really powerful, otherwise they would have to reign it in.

Long cooldowns and making mana scarce would also work. Most games have supplies/money enough to rest after every encounter anyway. Feels like chore. Afaik it is a trend only in western dnd inspired crpgs. Idk how jrpgs handle it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I dislike expandable spell/skill slots and resting to replace them. Just use mana/stamina pools or cooldowns like a normal person

It's there as an alternative to cooldown timers so that you can only use an extremely powerful spell once rather than being able to spam it repeatedly. So the designers can now design spells that feel really powerful, otherwise they would have to reign it in.

Long cooldowns and making mana scarce would also work. Most games have supplies/money enough to rest after every encounter anyway. Feels like chore. Afaik it is a trend only in western dnd inspired crpgs. Idk how jrpgs handle it.

Most JRPGs just have mana (some give you charges like in Suikoden) and the spells have no cooldowns (unless it's FF11). The consequence is that most JRPG spells do not feel truly powerful, because none of them are allowed to be. Case in point: sleep, paralysis, death, etc, usually if not almost always are never worth using because bosses are immune or highly resistant to them. You instead you just spam your highest damage spells like Fire and then Firaga and then Meteor, etc.

[UltraFan123]

That's precisely the issue with mana or "magic points" systems in general.

One of the 3.5 alternative magic systems was replacing the spells-per-day with "spell points" that function like the mana points of Japanese RPGs.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magi ... Points.htm

And just like expected, this system ended up invalidating all the lower-level spells because everyone was just spamming the strongest spells until the MP ran out.

[rusty_shackleford]

That's precisely the issue with mana or "magic points" systems in general.

One of the 3.5 alternative magic systems was replacing the spells-per-day with "spell points" that function like the mana points of Japanese RPGs.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magi ... Points.htm

And just like expected, this system ended up invalidating all the lower-level spells because everyone was just spamming the strongest spells until the MP ran out.

It works really well in Dungeons & Dragons Online, you have to carefully manage your SP. Each adventure has a limited number of rest spots, each rest spot can only be used once.

[roldet]

It's there as an alternative to cooldown timers so that you can only use an extremely powerful spell once rather than being able to spam it repeatedly. So the designers can now design spells that feel really powerful, otherwise they would have to reign it in.

Long cooldowns and making mana scarce would also work. Most games have supplies/money enough to rest after every encounter anyway. Feels like chore. Afaik it is a trend only in western dnd inspired crpgs. Idk how jrpgs handle it.

Most JRPGs just have mana (some give you charges like in Suikoden) and the spells have no cooldowns (unless it's FF11). The consequence is that most JRPG spells do not feel truly powerful, because none of them are allowed to be. Case in point: sleep, paralysis, death, etc, usually if not almost always are never worth using because bosses are immune or highly resistant to them. You instead you just spam your highest damage spells like Fire and then Firaga and then Meteor, etc.

Wrpg mages are also useful for crowd control/support/debuff; they are not powerful damage dealers - one to one- against bosses.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Long cooldowns and making mana scarce would also work. Most games have supplies/money enough to rest after every encounter anyway. Feels like chore. Afaik it is a trend only in western dnd inspired crpgs. Idk how jrpgs handle it.

Most JRPGs just have mana (some give you charges like in Suikoden) and the spells have no cooldowns (unless it's FF11). The consequence is that most JRPG spells do not feel truly powerful, because none of them are allowed to be. Case in point: sleep, paralysis, death, etc, usually if not almost always are never worth using because bosses are immune or highly resistant to them. You instead you just spam your highest damage spells like Fire and then Firaga and then Meteor, etc.

Wrpg mages are also useful for crowd control/support/debuff; they are not powerful damage dealers - one to one- against bosses.

That also ties into another difference between east and west rpg design. Western RPGs usually have a battlefield, and also tend to have other objectives besides "kill the enemy". Like trying to flip levers, or save someone, etc. However, in Japan, games that have these features have a line drawn around them called "SRPGs", which are not that many. Outside of "SRPGs", the overwhelming vast majority of JRPGs do not have battlefields to move around on or other objectives. So the gameplay almost always amounts to your team in a row vs their team in a row, and you win when you kill everyone. So in this environment, crowd control does not meaningfully exist. You don't need to CC an enemy about to finish off the hostage you are trying to save.

[J1M]

That's precisely the issue with mana or "magic points" systems in general.

One of the 3.5 alternative magic systems was replacing the spells-per-day with "spell points" that function like the mana points of Japanese RPGs.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magi ... Points.htm

And just like expected, this system ended up invalidating all the lower-level spells because everyone was just spamming the strongest spells until the MP ran out.

Sounds like it could be tuned by changing how the costs scale with spell level. Or making a spell that scales with level cost extra to scale with level.