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Jan 28, 2012 -- 11:16PM, Psyguard wrote:

Of all the Magic systems I've played with in D&D my all time favorite is the True Sorcery one from Green Ronin.

Spellcasters could do just about anything they could think of but not easily and not quickly.  Powerful spells could take many rounds to cast and would inflict non-lethal damage on you when you used them.  At low levels if you tried a large damaging spell you ran a very real risk of taking yourself out of action along with your target, assuming you made the skill check to successfully cast it in the first place.  I spent a lot of time unconscious before I really got a handle on the system.

But I loved the versatility of it. 

Of the different systems WoTC has come out with over the years my preferred one is the Spell Point system they had in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana.

Monte Cook's World of Darkness   had a good magic system as well.  Very versatile spell point based system with some fatigue rules in it but
it would be far too over powered for a D&D game.  If it was toned down a bit it would be nice to have in 5E

Please, look at alternative spell casting systems. One that is far more open-ended. I like all these suggestions.

A wizard should be able to memorize spells without forgetting them, cast spells above level (at some great peril), create magic items easily, and learn new spells. Please make a system that CAN BE not so crunchy for the story-tellers GMs out there.

Spell points drained when spells are cast, would be great. Run out of spell points, a character can start using his HP to cast spells.

I would also like to see the basic D20 mechanic tied to spell casting. Why should a spell have the same ability to hit a target in nor armor than one in armor? Casting a lower level spell should be easier than casting above-level spells. etc. I never liked that a character coudl simply cast a spell and have its affect occur--even with some saving throws. There should be some difficulty to casting.

If there were a roll, and spell points, there would be all sorts of possibilities for magic items, the use of spell components, conjuring, etc. Add the compoennts, get a +1 to your roll. Have a +2 casting wand of L8 Fireball, your chances just got better of casting that above-level spell.

Jan 31, 2012 -- 1:46PM, Qmark wrote:

Jan 31, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Garthanos wrote:

I personally think Mana Points requiring extra bookkeeping and additional rules for recovery and so on...

Huh?
Manapoints should just be costs subtracted from a number.  "Boosting" mechanics shouldn't require differential calculus to figure out.

Its not difficult its EXTRA, and recording the number of arrows, and which type my archer has is just another peice of bookkeeping...except I dont have another mechanic already in place that I can use.

It is another bit of bookkeeping... (they add up) if you already have a fatigue and recover system in place (and that resource is used for desparate use of magic ie hit point descriptions from AD&D era) I dont think I am getting a huge amount out of having mana points that maybe reflect having energy reserves beyond the normal fatigue.