Favorite magic system

[Kabas]

I am ok with anything as long as i am allowed to wear silly hats and all them fancy dresses.

But Vancian dresses disintegrate after you wear them. And you can only get new ones for Christmas.

Well, fuck vancian system then. You convinced me.

 

[Mikeal]

 

[Bocian]

Martial skill so high it's considered magic.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

Vancian Magic with Reagents, maybe even all of the above. Magic should be something special, dangerous and powerful. I hate it when Casters spam glowing Arrows.

 

[Jacob]

The one that won't let you to spam fireballs. Not even at level 150.

 

[Lilura]

This:

Because it equals this:

Spoiler

 

[laclongquan]

We dont see that anymore, sadly~

 

[buffalo bill]

Infra Arcana has a pretty great system: casting a spell increases insanity, which can have severe gameplay consequences if the value rises over a certain threshold. Casting also costs mana, which is quite limited—you cannot generally rely on casting a bunch of attack spells to destroy all of your enemies, for instance. I've found that the most useful spells are non-attack spells like clairvoyance and teleport, which is also a feature that is somewhat unusual for an RPG. Even a high-level caster will generally not be able to rely on magic to destroy the later-level enemies, though power does increase significantly as caster level increases, if the player makes wise decisions at level up.

Really can't say enough good things about this system. Beats most other magic systems I've experienced by a long shot. Of course, this system probably works especially well because IA is such a good and difficult game, where you actually have to think about each of your decisions, and the consequence of a bad action is generally PC death.

 

[Background Character]

Commander

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The best systems I've seen implemented are Vancian, though relatively unlimited systems with drawback mechanics are ideal. I've been musing about posting some of the rules my (perpetually developed) custom RPG system to have Codexians tear it apart.

The mechanic is pretty simple. Skill d Attribute, take the highest. Compare against a spell's challenge rating which they must exceed. If successful, add that rating to the spell, otherwise, face a drawback (backlash) per a supplied table. Once the success is determined, it is then compared against the target's relevant defense rolls. For example, here are some D&D spells if they were to be adapted:

Ray of Frost might have a challenge rating of 2. PC's character has Reason attribute of 10 and Arcane skill of 2. Therefore, they roll 2d10, taking the highest. If the roll is 8, the outcome is 10 (roll 8 + 2 CR). A more powerful spell, like Disintegrate has a CR of 7. The PC's character only has a 51% chance of exceeding 7. The difference of the failure dictates the severity of the backlash, which runs the gamut from "no effect" up through your character "violently detonating". I feel like I've finally got all the kinks of the system out, but I've felt that way before. Right now I'm on version 6.

 

[anvi]

tEh bEsTiSt MaJikA EvOr iS sKyRim (That is my impression of half of you people.) The best magic ever is spending 3 hours finding a radish root to shoot my ray of enfeeblement. (That is my impression of everyone else).

 

[Skdursh]

It really depends on what type of RPG it is and how it's implemented. My personal favorite magic system in a game that I've played is probably Dragon's Dogma, but that's mainly because that game made magic feel like it had some real weight to it and was not to be fucked with, but if we're talking RTwP then I think Vancian works really well for that type of game and you get a good sense of progression as you level up and consequentially get access to more powerful spells while at the same time being able to cast the lower level spells more often without needing a rest. Honestly all of the various magic systems have their place and the only kind that I'm not really a fan of is cooldown, but that's mainly because it's generally an MMO mechanic and all of the MMORPGs that I've played are complete shit.