Level 1

Ya, lots of chatting in the blogs about how level 1 D&D magic users are hard to play and how it's all a meat grinder.  I have no problem with that, I've run monty haul campaigns and cakewalks and they are no fun.  No stakes.  I'd happily play a level 1 magic user as long as the game was fun and the DM was good.  Now since I support this opinion it's impossible for me to act in any other way because this is the internet and everyone has to pick a side.  Well screw that.  Just because I see this as a good thing in OD&D, I don't have to think that that's the only way to play the game.

In Beacon, level 1 isn't nearly as 'hard' as it is in OD&D.  Firstly you get a pile more hit points - Strength score + 1d6 HP to start. Even the weakest possible PC would have 4 hp to start, and the toughest possible dwarven fighter would have 27!  Maybe that's too much, but it sure makes it easier for the players starting out and it means you are most likely going to survive first level unless you are very unlucky or you charge ahead blindly all the time.  And it's not like I didn't kill some PCs in the play test either.  First level Beacon isn't hard, but it's not a cakewalk.

But it's not all about surviving at low levels, it's about getting to do things.  In Beacon you can usually get into a couple fights before you need to flee or heal.  This is by design.  Since fights are quick you can get through a couple fights pretty fast, and you can get into a lot of them in the course of an evening.  Having to stop and rest after each skirmish would slow things down.  Also magic burns hit points.  Forget about casting one spell a day in Beacon, you can cast 4 or 5 pretty handily - you don't even need to pick them out ahead of time.  However even though a first level Beacon 'magic user' can cast way more spells than a D&D magic user, they can also use crossbows or short swords.  Ol' Thedric sure finds his crossbow in a hurry when the goblins come a running.  What I find the most interesting about using HP as spell juice is that players ration their spells, they don't want to be down to 3 or 4 hp - even if that is all they would have in peek condition in D&D.  It's a visceral thing but it works well - it's a metagamey reaction that simulates character tension/motivation, kind of like the fear players get from level stealing undead.

So I'm of the opinion that this Beacon low level game is working - working for me anyway.  The play test we've been running has characters up to level 3 now and despite a couple little grumbles, I think that the characters are pretty capable but not overpowered.  Really it comes down to what you throw at them at first level, and I'd have no problem throwing a half dozen goblins or a couple of giant frogs at them.  I think it's working for the players too, they seem to have enough to do that they aren't pulling 15 minute adventure days - but have also learned that if they don't ration their resources they are not immune to loosing half the party or flirting with a TPK.

So does this mean I'm not old sckool?  Well I think a lot of my game preferences are OSR certified even if I run a d20 system.  I like descriptive actions, random encounters, unbalanced encounters and resource management.  I'll kill your PC, I'll kill them dead.  I just hope I don't loose any readers because I didn't make everything into charts or subscribe to the meat-grinder chargen philosophy.

Magic Missile and other mage spells

OK, I've already talked a bit about Fireball and Lightning Bolt, but  a lot more spells that I thought are kind of wonky when translated from SDR to Beacon.  Number one culprit is the change from spell slots to a point system, which I did keep in mind.  The other thing I'm finding however is that there is also a change because HP are spell points and that changes the cost. No one wants to spend 3 HP to do 1 HP damage to something - it isn't smart.  I already changed the way Cure spells work to address this, but now I'm going to look at a couple of low level Mage spells; Magic Missile and Cone of Cold.

Magic Missile does 1d4+1 and you get one extra missile every 2 levels.  In Beacon this means it's a crap spell for first level casters.  It also scales crappy because at 3HP to cast it is going to be a good spell the higher your level without the extra missiles.  So this ones needs a makeover.  Prestidigitation is garbage because it just replicates the effects of other cantrips like Create Fire and Mage Hand.   A couple more candidates are Cone of Cold and Comprehend Languages.  Cone of Cold does 1d3 points of cold damage - and at 3HP to cast that sucks.  You're better off to use your dagger.  Also since you don't want it to compete with Magic Missile as a simple blast spell it should probably focus on the cold aspect over the ray aspect.  As for Comprehend Languages, well that's a cleric spell really.  Clerics get the communication bonuses in Beacon so why the heck would wizards get this spell - there isn't enough spells to overlap like this anyway.

So here are my changes to mage spells level 0-3:

• Prestidigitation now only deals with smoke and fog.
• Magic Missile now does 4+1d4 damage.  You do not get additional missiles as you level up - you get more HP to cast it more often.
• Cone of Cold is a wave of cold that emanates out from the casters hand and freezes stuff like small puddles or buckets of water.  It is shorter range (25ft+5/level) now than before (sight).  Think of it as a reverse microwave. It now does 1d6 cold damage to living creatures as a byproduct.
• Shocking Grasp deals 2d6 + 1 point/per level electric damage.  More damage upfront because you can cast it a few times.  It also scales a bit because it's hard and dangerous to touch things and those things will get bigger as you do.
• Comprehend Languages is now Decipher and it allows the caster to understand natural written languages only.  It does not translate magic writing but it can be used to figure out things written in code - just add a DC value for coded messages to the casting roll.
• Protection from Missiles now more relevant since now missile weapons hit before spells do in combat.  it does 10 +1 point / caster level.  Which is now enough to stop a few arrows at 3rd level and hopefully a few more as you level up and get into bigger fights.  But its now a personal spell.
• Fireball and Lightning Bolt will do 3d6 +1 per level (8-23 points at level 5, 13-28 at level 10).  That's still a lot, but nothing like doing 3-30 or 10-60 points of damage for 7 casting points from before.  It's also less variable.
• Vampiric Touch does 1d8 +1 per level now.  I also put in wording to specify it can only restore physical fatigue not magic fatigue.

I think that by doing these changes I might actually see more use of the extending/widening spell rules so I might leave them in, but I'm still on the fence about it.  I like the idea of these rules but I'm not sure they are worth the additional complexity.

Lesser Seeming

Some Enchanter spells are kind of weak or missing some punch and so I'm going to swap out a couple in order to provide a better experience.  Since there is already Mirror Image at level 1 and Blur at level 2 I really don't think they need another defensive misdirection spell at level 3.  However I really think they need a good spell for disguising things since Disguise Self is pretty limited and Seeming is a level 5 spell.

Displacement:
Range:  Touch.
Duration: 1 turn /level.
Description:  Attacks against the subject miss 50% of the time.

for this:

Lesser Seeming:
Range:  Touch.
Duration: 1 hour.
Description: Visual and audible illusion changes appearance of 1 creature to another creature of at least 50% similar size and shape.  Does not provide any tactile, mobile or ability effects to recipient.

So it provides one hour of video and audio but you can't breath water if you are posing as a mermaid or reach high things if you are seeming to be a giant.  I'm also bumping up Seeming to include the audible components of Lesser Seeming - it is a level 5 spell for goodness sake.

Confusion

The Enchanter cantrip Confusion is not that good.

Confusion:
Range: 25 ft. + 5 ft. /2 levels.
Duration: 1 min.
Description: In combat, target has 5% chance per level of attacking the wrong target.

It's terrible at low levels and problematic at higher levels (gets too powerful for a cantrip) and with solo monsters you have to figure out what the wrong target might be. How about this instead:

Confusion:
Range:  25 ft. + 5 ft. /2 levels.
Duration:  1 min.
Description:  In their next combat action, target has +5% chance of a critical fumble per every 2 caster levels up to a max of 50%.

So this just slides the target's failures into a greater chance of a critical miss, 5th level Enchanter making an enemy fail crit on a 4 or less is nasty without being too breaky n'est pas?  At 17th level it would be a 10 or less.  That sounds like more fun to me.

Read Magic

I wanted the three Arcane magic classes to be as distinct as possible with little overlap - this would emphasize the differences in play approach of the classes.  Illusionists just don't deal out the same kind of damage as a mage would for example, their play style should be more subtle.  Druids would be experts at practical applications of magic, especially in the natural world.   Mages would have a wider array of magics and probably be more skilled at dealing with raw magic forces.  Also Arcane magic has to be real distinct from Divine magic - a decision that led me to include a lot of Druid spells into the Arcane lists, and eventually decide that Druids just weren't going to be Divine spell casters.  For the most part I did like the lists used in Microlite (which seem to be a paraphrase of the SRD spell lists), but there was some overlap and sometimes a spell's power would make it useless or overpowered in a point system where you could get away with it in a slots per day system.

The concept I wanted to get across was that Arcane magic was all about complicated and precise thought formulas - the kind of formulas that you would need to have in a book to constantly study and practice.  Arcane magic is about the written word.  Only Arcane magic can be made into scrolls.

Arcane casters, be they a mage, druid or illusionist, need a spell book and must spend time studying it and working with their craft. Now the spellbook itself isn't magic (although it probably would show faintly if you cast detect magic), however it is written in the language of magic and it's not just a book - it's also a quill and special ink and herbs and notes and lists written on the study of magic.  If you lost your spell books and equipment you would barely get by until it was replaced.  Just like you could possibly run a game of say BattleTech without the rule books and minis, it is a lot easier with them, especially a large game.   Especially a large game in the dark in a foreign language.

Microlite has spell casters knowing all spells of the level they can cast.  I like to scale that back quite a bit because I like making spells part of the loot.  Beacon rules state that Arcane casters start out knowing their class cantrips and and three 1st level spells.  The rest they must seek out in the libraries, dark catacombs and wizarding associations of the world.  The great beauty of this kind of thing is that you can totally slide in your own weird 3rd level spell in a old library deep in an ancient crypt.

I don't think I want to write specific rules for gaining new spells or what happens when your spell book is lost because that I think is a setting kind of thing, however personally I think I would be making it pretty hard on characters to cast spells beyond the simple cantrips.  In The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg, the spell casters must visit the Library in the great city of Pandathaway to transcribe some spells that were lost when their spell books were destroyed.  It was a very expensive and time consuming process as befits all things relating to the study of Arcane Magic.

note: I read this cool blogpost about Vancian magic not long after I posted this.  Sweet.

Practicing Arcane Magic

In my addled mind I can picture the typical arcane spell caster.  He is not a young man, but he is not ancient either.  He has wrinkles around his eyes since he has had to spend a lot of time in in poor light studying.  His movements and words are precise as he has learned the consequence of an improper gesture or phrase.  He may be keenly perceptive or almost absent minded except where it concerns his area of study, whether it be the forces of reality, the natural world or the arena of the mind.  His power is not granted to him, it comes from his will to understand and his ability to hold onto his mind in this understanding.  He may be a good humored fellow, but he won't joke about magic.  Magic is serious business.

I like to think there's a reason that powerful mages don't often run roughshod over the world - it's because magic is dangerous stuff and if they don't eventually screw it up (consider the primary cause of mass wasting in mountain chains is not erosion...) they usually go crazy.  Giving up on Vancian magic does not mean that you have to neuter the magic of a spell system.  Yes a lot of this relies on the campaign setting, however in the rules I wanted to make sure that there was some reflection of this - so there is always a dice roll for casting a spell.  Along with a dice roll comes a critical hit/fumble table as well.

Also a personal peeve of mine;
Whenever I have someone look at Beacon (or Microlite) one of the first comments is "I don't like that magic uses up your hit points.  I think that will make players not want to cast spells."

I just don't understand this comment because having a fixed number of daily spell slots will also make players not want to use spells (especially once they have used all their daily slots up).  Here's a clip from a email I sent to doubtful friend of mine (who shall remain nameless for now!)

Figure that you are a mage with a STR of 13 and you get a 4 on your <hp> roll so you have 17 Hp which is pretty average.  A first level spell costs 3hp to cast and cantrips like the light spell cost 1 so at level 1 out the gate you can cast light 3 times, magic missile and 2 sleep spells (1+1+1+3+3+3=12) and still have 5hp left over before you pass out.  If you get to 0hp you still have 13 STR before you die.  If there was a real emergency you still can cast one first level and one cantrip and let the heavy carry you back to town and you get all your HP back after a good 8 hour rest.

That's way better than old school d&d where you would have one sleep spell per day*.

A Beacon mage will generally have more spells available to cast than their d&d counterpart, as well as be more useful when not spell casting due to the more flexible skill system.  Some of those spell might not work,  there's a small chance they may work at double or even triple levels of power or they might even backfire and scorch your MIND.

SO you get more spells my apprentice - but they will come at a price!  Mu-hahah<cough>haha


*and probably 2 HP --- in your face!