FF8 style magic for D&D [Archive] - Wizards Community

FF8 style magic for D&D [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
sindar
09-17-05, 04:03 AM For a upcoming campaign I would like to use a magic system similar to the Draw system found in FF8.
Ideas.
DwarvinJedi
09-17-05, 11:37 AM I'll have to play it agian and get back to you(its been YEARS since I touched it)
Aurotuli
09-17-05, 02:45 PM This is actually more difficult than first glance would suggest. By the story, only those junctioned with a guardian force can draw - or use - spells, but several of the 'monsters' were guards with stored up magic (apparently drawn elsewhere prior to battle), thus seeming to invalidate this premise. I suggest the following:

Require a Feat to have the ability to 'draw' magic (Req: Cha 13+). Spell-like abilities are treated as if stored up spells, so using 'draw' on a vampire might allow one to 'draw' dominate person, spider climb, polymorph self, summon nature's ally, gaseous form, or etc. When 'drawing' spells, one may have no more than their character level for any particular spell. (ie: A Ftr 5 with this feat cannot hold more than five castings of a particular spell.) For balance's sake, you may want to limit the number of spells held to their Cha score. (So a character with Cha 13 could only hold 13 distinct spells - or spell levels, which might actually be a better balanced idea, actually.)

Finally, to duplicate the synergy bonii gained from the spells in FF8, I suggest the following: divide the spells by school - and posibly sub-school, each school giving a different type of bonii. Thus evocation (fire) spells grant a synergy bonus of fire resistance equal to the total spell levels held (thus limited by character level). Skill, Attack, AC, Save, and other such bonii are limited to +1 per two spell levels held that grant the necessary bonus.

In the end you will have a very versatle system that grants minor additional bonii while severely limiting how many spells - and castings of such spells - might be used at any given time. Note that spell-like abilities should probably count as infinite drawable, but it would be better to assume it having a limit. (Say, Cha score number of castings of each per day, with a regen of 1 usage per HD per restful day/night.) Also, be aware you may end up having trouble with enemies having the feat drawing from the PCs - and a long, long battle resulting from each side drawing from the other each round.

This is a basic system, above. You will have to do quite a bit more work to make it actually work - and be balanced. Once you have it set up, it should prove to be a rather interesting game.
Koga:The ninja trick
09-17-05, 09:29 PM Well what applies to monsters doesn't apply to PCs, so that can be ignored.

As for characters, just drop all other casters besides the battle sorcerer who's going to make this the most simple. (And he's going to need the increase in hit die to be able to face this randomness!)

Each time he would be able to cast a new level of spell, he chooses a number of spellsto implmenet into the drawing deck equal to a dice, the higher the spell, the lower the dice, he's still restricted to spells per day however, this just allows him to know more spells at the cost of any sortof control. (Which is how a sorcerer should've been in the first place.)

Level 0 spells: Choose any 20 cleric/druid or sorcerer/wizard spells in any combination. Then whenever he casts a 0 level spell roll a d20 to see what is cast.
Level 1 spells: As level 0.
Level 2 spells: Same as above but with a d12.
Level 3 spells: d12.
Level 4 spells: d12.
Level 5 spells: d10.
Level 6 spells: d10.
Level 7 spells: d10.
Level 8 spells: d10.
Level 9 spells: d8.

How's that? :)
Aurotuli
09-18-05, 08:08 PM How's that? :)Its an interesting system, but it doesn't really match the draw system in FF8 at all. What you've described is basically a wild mage, not a draw system magic user. Otherwise, it is quite an interesting idea.
Solik
09-18-05, 08:37 PM If you want to increase the variability of the spells available for drawing (especially if you want to be able to draw from creaturs without spell-like abilities or other magic stored), consider using the scroll tables when you generate monsters to determine which spells are draw-able from said creature. You will likely have to make your own tables, though, divided by CR.

I suggest making a new class for this rather than a feat (similar to the Blue Mage seen in the Classes board).
Koga:The ninja trick
09-18-05, 09:13 PM This is actually more difficult than first glance would suggest. By the story, only those junctioned with a guardian force can draw - or use - spells, but several of the 'monsters' were guards with stored up magic (apparently drawn elsewhere prior to battle), thus seeming to invalidate this premise.[/b]
Never played Final Fantasy 8 so didn't know that, this sounds remarkbly simaler to psionics, so why not do this..

All living creatures are born naturaly psionic, (roll a d12 to see how many points they start off with.)

Inorder to start manifesting powers, they need to take the feat wild talent. They then are only capable of manifesting powers of a level equal to thier charisma -10.

They also are restricted to waiting 3 character levels before being able to manifest the next level of power. IE: a level 2 character can only manifest level 1 powers but a level 3 can manifest level 2 powers.

Once taking the wild talent feat, they gain 1d12 power points per character level. Inorder to learn a power, the characters must burn a skill-point per level of the power. They cannot learn later level powers early this way, nor can they learn more then 2 powers at one time. Keeping them from becoming "2" powerful heh..

And this way, bards can still exsist, just ignore thier spells-list and treat thier badick music as psi-like. The cleric too can still exsist, just loses his or her spell-list as the same with the druid and everybody else. Though The Koga would forbid some classes from taking psionics for game balance reasons. Such as the druid and the monk..
Aurotuli
09-19-05, 01:27 AM In FF8 the general pattern for magic use is the following:

There is one being who can basically use any spell at will, a demi-goddess figure (always female) called the Sorceress.

There are quasi-elemental [magic] beings that tend to have great power in a particular type of magic. Cherebus had spells associated with it that were basically haste and improved haste. Carbunkle had protective magic. Ifrit had fire magic, Leviathun had water/regenerative magic, bahamut had destructive/time magic, etc.

Sapient beings can 'junction' with these creatures. The creature then exists within the sapient being, and the being can use some of the creature's abilities. Also, the sapient being can draw upon magic from outside it while junctioned in this manner. It can draw upon magic in other beings holding magic, or it can draw upon magic at specific point on the land. ("Ley-points" I suppose is as good an explanation as any, but these were specific spells that could be drawn, generally a single drawing of about 2d4 castings was possible, but after it would be 'empty' for a day or two - until it refilled. Oh, and some of these sites were invisible / undetectable unless you were junctioned to the right quasi-elemental being which had been advanced enough.)

Thus, in the FF8 game, you start with access to a couple of these quasi-elementals, and throughout the game you can seek out and find others, while also drawing magic from other creatures / beings. Any being with a spell-like ability can be drawn from (even if it does not have a junction).

The problem with the setup (in game) is that some guards you meet also have such magic within them, and while they do not draw from you (that is one constant throughout the entire game), you can draw from them. It was the only aspect of the game that did not make much sense to me - that unjunctioned human guards might have drawable magic. Ah well.

Another aspect of the game is that these spells could be junctioned to ability scores and protective traits. So one could junction fire to Dex, for instance, to get a synergy bonus (perhaps equivalent to +1 per five caster levels, to use a d20 comparison). Since you could hold up to 100 castings per spell - and since each spell came in one of three levels of potency, this generally meant you wanted to find the most castings of the highest potency and junction it to the ability score or protective trait (def vs poison, vs fire, etc) that was most useful. Fire, for instance, might grant +1/5 caster levels to Dex, but it might only grant +1 per 10 (or even 20) caster levels for Str or Con. It might grant +1/2 caster levels to def vs fire, but it would likely not junction at all with def vs ice, etc.

This was done in part due to the lack of what we would consider magical items. Weapons could become more powerful (the equivalent of +2, etc) but these were non-magical enhancements due to finding lots of rare parts and having them put together properly with the less enhanced weapon. I don't think there was a way to junction fire spells to a weapon (for fire damage), but I don't see a reason why not if attempting to emulate the FF8 magic system. It was, after all, a more versitle variant of the FF7 materia magic system (in which magic was solid crystalline substance directly junctioned to weapons and items, instead of metaphysical substance junctioned to the body / mind).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sindar 09-17-05, 04:03 AM	For a upcoming campaign I would like to use a magic system similar to the Draw system found in FF8. Ideas.
DwarvinJedi 09-17-05, 11:37 AM	I'll have to play it agian and get back to you(its been YEARS since I touched it)
Aurotuli 09-17-05, 02:45 PM	This is actually more difficult than first glance would suggest. By the story, only those junctioned with a guardian force can draw - or use - spells, but several of the 'monsters' were guards with stored up magic (apparently drawn elsewhere prior to battle), thus seeming to invalidate this premise. I suggest the following: Require a Feat to have the ability to 'draw' magic (Req: Cha 13+). Spell-like abilities are treated as if stored up spells, so using 'draw' on a vampire might allow one to 'draw' dominate person, spider climb, polymorph self, summon nature's ally, gaseous form, or etc. When 'drawing' spells, one may have no more than their character level for any particular spell. (ie: A Ftr 5 with this feat cannot hold more than five castings of a particular spell.) For balance's sake, you may want to limit the number of spells held to their Cha score. (So a character with Cha 13 could only hold 13 distinct spells - or spell levels, which might actually be a better balanced idea, actually.) Finally, to duplicate the synergy bonii gained from the spells in FF8, I suggest the following: divide the spells by school - and posibly sub-school, each school giving a different type of bonii. Thus evocation (fire) spells grant a synergy bonus of fire resistance equal to the total spell levels held (thus limited by character level). Skill, Attack, AC, Save, and other such bonii are limited to +1 per two spell levels held that grant the necessary bonus. In the end you will have a very versatle system that grants minor additional bonii while severely limiting how many spells - and castings of such spells - might be used at any given time. Note that spell-like abilities should probably count as infinite drawable, but it would be better to assume it having a limit. (Say, Cha score number of castings of each per day, with a regen of 1 usage per HD per restful day/night.) Also, be aware you may end up having trouble with enemies having the feat drawing from the PCs - and a long, long battle resulting from each side drawing from the other each round. This is a basic system, above. You will have to do quite a bit more work to make it actually work - and be balanced. Once you have it set up, it should prove to be a rather interesting game.
Koga:The ninja trick 09-17-05, 09:29 PM	Well what applies to monsters doesn't apply to PCs, so that can be ignored. As for characters, just drop all other casters besides the battle sorcerer who's going to make this the most simple. (And he's going to need the increase in hit die to be able to face this randomness!) Each time he would be able to cast a new level of spell, he chooses a number of spellsto implmenet into the drawing deck equal to a dice, the higher the spell, the lower the dice, he's still restricted to spells per day however, this just allows him to know more spells at the cost of any sortof control. (Which is how a sorcerer should've been in the first place.) Level 0 spells: Choose any 20 cleric/druid or sorcerer/wizard spells in any combination. Then whenever he casts a 0 level spell roll a d20 to see what is cast. Level 1 spells: As level 0. Level 2 spells: Same as above but with a d12. Level 3 spells: d12. Level 4 spells: d12. Level 5 spells: d10. Level 6 spells: d10. Level 7 spells: d10. Level 8 spells: d10. Level 9 spells: d8. How's that? :)
Aurotuli 09-18-05, 08:08 PM	How's that? :)Its an interesting system, but it doesn't really match the draw system in FF8 at all. What you've described is basically a wild mage, not a draw system magic user. Otherwise, it is quite an interesting idea.
Solik 09-18-05, 08:37 PM	If you want to increase the variability of the spells available for drawing (especially if you want to be able to draw from creaturs without spell-like abilities or other magic stored), consider using the scroll tables when you generate monsters to determine which spells are draw-able from said creature. You will likely have to make your own tables, though, divided by CR. I suggest making a new class for this rather than a feat (similar to the Blue Mage seen in the Classes board).
Koga:The ninja trick 09-18-05, 09:13 PM	This is actually more difficult than first glance would suggest. By the story, only those junctioned with a guardian force can draw - or use - spells, but several of the 'monsters' were guards with stored up magic (apparently drawn elsewhere prior to battle), thus seeming to invalidate this premise.[/b] Never played Final Fantasy 8 so didn't know that, this sounds remarkbly simaler to psionics, so why not do this.. All living creatures are born naturaly psionic, (roll a d12 to see how many points they start off with.) Inorder to start manifesting powers, they need to take the feat wild talent. They then are only capable of manifesting powers of a level equal to thier charisma -10. They also are restricted to waiting 3 character levels before being able to manifest the next level of power. IE: a level 2 character can only manifest level 1 powers but a level 3 can manifest level 2 powers. Once taking the wild talent feat, they gain 1d12 power points per character level. Inorder to learn a power, the characters must burn a skill-point per level of the power. They cannot learn later level powers early this way, nor can they learn more then 2 powers at one time. Keeping them from becoming "2" powerful heh.. And this way, bards can still exsist, just ignore thier spells-list and treat thier badick music as psi-like. The cleric too can still exsist, just loses his or her spell-list as the same with the druid and everybody else. Though The Koga would forbid some classes from taking psionics for game balance reasons. Such as the druid and the monk..
Aurotuli 09-19-05, 01:27 AM	In FF8 the general pattern for magic use is the following: There is one being who can basically use any spell at will, a demi-goddess figure (always female) called the Sorceress. There are quasi-elemental [magic] beings that tend to have great power in a particular type of magic. Cherebus had spells associated with it that were basically haste and improved haste. Carbunkle had protective magic. Ifrit had fire magic, Leviathun had water/regenerative magic, bahamut had destructive/time magic, etc. Sapient beings can 'junction' with these creatures. The creature then exists within the sapient being, and the being can use some of the creature's abilities. Also, the sapient being can draw upon magic from outside it while junctioned in this manner. It can draw upon magic in other beings holding magic, or it can draw upon magic at specific point on the land. ("Ley-points" I suppose is as good an explanation as any, but these were specific spells that could be drawn, generally a single drawing of about 2d4 castings was possible, but after it would be 'empty' for a day or two - until it refilled. Oh, and some of these sites were invisible / undetectable unless you were junctioned to the right quasi-elemental being which had been advanced enough.) Thus, in the FF8 game, you start with access to a couple of these quasi-elementals, and throughout the game you can seek out and find others, while also drawing magic from other creatures / beings. Any being with a spell-like ability can be drawn from (even if it does not have a junction). The problem with the setup (in game) is that some guards you meet also have such magic within them, and while they do not draw from you (that is one constant throughout the entire game), you can draw from them. It was the only aspect of the game that did not make much sense to me - that unjunctioned human guards might have drawable magic. Ah well. Another aspect of the game is that these spells could be junctioned to ability scores and protective traits. So one could junction fire to Dex, for instance, to get a synergy bonus (perhaps equivalent to +1 per five caster levels, to use a d20 comparison). Since you could hold up to 100 castings per spell - and since each spell came in one of three levels of potency, this generally meant you wanted to find the most castings of the highest potency and junction it to the ability score or protective trait (def vs poison, vs fire, etc) that was most useful. Fire, for instance, might grant +1/5 caster levels to Dex, but it might only grant +1 per 10 (or even 20) caster levels for Str or Con. It might grant +1/2 caster levels to def vs fire, but it would likely not junction at all with def vs ice, etc. This was done in part due to the lack of what we would consider magical items. Weapons could become more powerful (the equivalent of +2, etc) but these were non-magical enhancements due to finding lots of rare parts and having them put together properly with the less enhanced weapon. I don't think there was a way to junction fire spells to a weapon (for fire damage), but I don't see a reason why not if attempting to emulate the FF8 magic system. It was, after all, a more versitle variant of the FF7 materia magic system (in which magic was solid crystalline substance directly junctioned to weapons and items, instead of metaphysical substance junctioned to the body / mind).