Ars Magica, the TRoS way....

[Malechi]

Ok first I'm not sure "Falling apart" is quite the right description.  Certainly it didn't seem to fit the requirements of the moment on more than one occasion and certainly took a lot more time to create a spell than I had expected.  This is due in no small part to the player's insistence on being "correct".  I usually take a more liberal approach to whether or not something can be attempted and indeed with most rules interpretations.  The player in question however tends to be the kind of person who has to get things absolutely 100% correct (he's an engineer...go figure)

Interestingly we ran another session, this time without the aforementioned AM player (he's left to build chemical weapons factories in Pakistan or Dubai or something ;) ) and using the TROS sorcery rules and I'll have to say the magic that did come up seemed to run a lot smoother.  Obviously I was running NPC magic and with my more liberal, narrative approach things went smoothly (i am after all the GM ;) ).  

Specifics regarding the AM system that seemed to not gel were the orientation (as mentioned before) of Rituals being the base level, then you get worse as you get quicker/spontaneous, as opposed to the TROS magic where Spontaneous seems to be the base and you get better as you go go up.  That might seem weird and in my mind it is.  Its a frame of reference thing and perhaps more to do with psychology than mechanical deficiency.  I think perhaps the AM rules would work fine if the player has an extensive list of predetermined, formalised spells at his/her disposal.  Creating things on the fly was a bit tedious/involved (I actually think its not the systems fault but the player)..

anyways I'll try to think of actual problems and stop repeating myself ;)

cheers

Jason K.

[Morfedel]

Thanks Jason!

If you could get someone to try it out who isn't an engineer, it might be nice to see! If it is a systems problem, i want to tweak it, and if its a player's problem... well, I cant tweak him, heh.


James

[Rausch]

Hi,
I'm pretty new to TRoS, been lurking the boards for a while and just got my copy delivered last week <Yay!>.  I really think the combat system is amazing, and wedding it to AM magic ought to make for a very cool game. Great job on the conversion, by the way!

I have one suggesting that might simplify on-the-fly spell crafting. Rather than having Tech.+Form gate the max CTN, how about having it gate the max effect you can produce like in TRoS magic? That way you wouldn't have to figure out the whole spell to see if you can cast it.
You could make each art range from 1-3, and tweak the effect table to something like:

Effect
1. Minor effect                       (AM 1-10)
2. Novice level effect             (AM 10-20)
3. Apprentice level effect       (AM 20-30)
4. Journeyman level effect     (AM 30-40)
5. Master level effect             (AM 40-50)
6. Archmage level effect        (AM 60+)

This is more of a style thing, but I'd also go with the AM ranges, targets, and durations because they have a more mystical feel. And you can then ditch the Volume table (since it's already sort of figured into the AM targets) and have one fewer thing to factor into a spell. I suppose this would increase magics power level, but probably not radically.

[Morfedel]

Thanks for the reply!

I have finally started my own campaign... I'm going to run a few weeks with the regular magic system, then a few weeks with my conversion, etc, and see whats what.

So hopefully in a few weeks, the creator of the conversion himself will have his own feedback. :D

[Morfedel]

I've been giving it a lot of thought. It may be that my original system is perhaps a tad complex.

I've been thinking about how to simplify it. I'm running my own TROS game now... I denied anyone putting anything other than F in race/sorcery in the beginning, as I decided I wanted to get a true feel for campaign play and mechanics with everything else before opening that can of worms.

So, now I'm taking another look at the system for converting AM's magic system to TROS, considering feedback I had, etc, and it may be too complex.

So, i've begun cobbling together a new mechanic.

The big problem is going to be to figure out how to determine damage, since there are no damage lists for things like Ignem spells that can actually kill.

In the meantime, just to give you an idea of where I'm heading:


Use AM to determine the actual level of a spell. Then divide taht level by 5, rounding up. That is the new level of the spell.

Proficiency points are used, 1 for 1, to purchase levels in the techniques and forms. The cost for purchasing the arts increases just as it does in AM. In other words, 1 level in Ignem costs 1 point; 2nd level costs 2 more points, for a total of 3; 3rd level costs 3 more, for a total of 6, ext.

The maximum level of the spell one can cast equals the technique + form; so, if one has 2nd level in creo and 2nd level in ignem, you can cast a level 4 creo ignem spell, which is equivalent to 20th level spells in AM.

I'm working on how the sorcery pool should with the spell system of AM, how to resolve damage from non-obvious sources, etc. I'm hoping by the end of the weekend. I just wanted to give you guys some heads-ups on my attempts at simplification.

Then i can playtest it myself now that I have a group :)