Well, I had a "Real Monstrous Matters" post that I was working on, as I've been enjoying putting one of those together each week if I can. For some reason, this one started morphing from my established pattern of "this is some cool science, now here's a monster" into speculation on the subjective experiences of starfish. So, that one will wait until next week when I can get a little bit of a handle on what the heck I'm trying to say with it. In the meantime, as I've been building the "Monstrous6" rules system, tiny piece by tinier piece, with my posts on here, I figured I'd go ahead and lay out what I'm imagining as the default magic system for the game (and for the Monstrous Matters campaign).
I want something that will feel at least a little different from Vancian spellcasting. Shadowdark and Dungeon Crawl Classics have given us some nice variants that keep a lot of the Vancian bones in place, so I looked to them for inspiration but tried to give it a little spin that would feel unique to this 2d6-based system. Here's what I came up with; I've only been able to test it once so far but hope to get more under my belt soon...
The Basics:
1) Monstrous6 is essentially a skill-based system, so Magic is a skill and is given a value just as other skills are. Different types of magic are connected to different skills and potentially to different underlying attributes. The spells cast by a wizard, for example, might use the skill Arcane Magic (or perhaps a different skill for each school) and use the Knowledge attribute, while those of a cleric are resolved with Divine Magic (or specific domains) and Presence. Christmas Elves have Holiday Magic (Presence). Rudies have...Rudeness, I guess...? (Also Presence...)
2) Starting characters can learn one spell for each point they have in the attribute that governs their specific type of spellcasting. More may be learned as play progresses.
3) Spells are roughly the power of those found in most OGL games. So, OSR spells will work, or 5e spells with some adjustments to the dice used. (I like to use d6 in the place of both d6 and d8, then have the other die sizes represented by d6 +/- the appropriate value.) Also, advantage/disadvantage will need to be turned into bonuses or penalties. Spells still have levels, just as they do in d20-based games.
4) To cast a spell, make a magical skill roll [2d6 + Attribute + Skill] vs. the spell’s difficulty, which is found by adding [10 + (spell level) + (number of times you’ve attempted to cast a spell today, including the current one)]. If you meet or exceed the difficulty value, the spell is successful.
5) For spells requiring a saving throw, those difficulties are calculated by [8 + Attribute + Skill]. (For both saving throws and the magical skill rolls in #4, as with most rolls in Monstrous6, a 12 is always a success, and a 2 is always a failure.)
6) If your magical skill roll results in both dice landing on the same face (rolling doubles), you can feel the vibrations of magical power escaping your grasp for the day. You may continue to cast spells on the current day by “paying” 1 point of your magical attribute. You may do this as many times as necessary but may not drop below a value of 1. This loss impacts all rolls for that attribute until the point is regained. All of these points in the attribute, along with the daily spell counter, are reset after a long rest. (Alternatively, you may choose not to pay the attribute point after rolling doubles; in that case, you are simply unable to cast further spells of that type until you take a long rest.)
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More to come on this.
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