OSR Search

Loading

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Bitchy magic of the Barbaric Frontier- spell casting procedure house rule

Magic in the world of the Barbaric Frontier is not your common vanilla fantasy thing. It's danegerous to cast spells - if someone fail at casting, he will at least become partially insane . To reflect this I've made a small addition to the typical vancian magic. Every time magic-user attempts to cast a spell, he must make a saving throw with the negative modifier as the level of the cast spell. If he fails, player must consult the table below: 

Roll 1d8
Effect
1
Caster loses 1d4 insanity points
2
Caster loses 1d6 insanity points
3
Caster ages 2d4 years
4
Offensive spell is being cast on the caster; healing spell has the reversed effect
5
Monstrosity from the Beyond attacks the caster and his allies(a random demon is summoned at the discretion of the Referee
6
1d8 insanity points
7
Caster falls unconscious
8
Caster recieves 1d6 damage

3 comments:

  1. Interesting idea, but, bearing in mind how bad 1st level characters' saves are, wouldn't it mean that most magic-users would be dead or insane well before reaching 2nd level? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed that was my intention, however when I play-test it I will probably soften this a bit:). Maybe with additional saving throw and changed table.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Weighting the table with a 2d4 or 2d6 roll may be a good idea if you want magic-users to be at all a viable class at lower levels. They already have enough problems as it is.

    ReplyDelete