User:Surgo/Hero Game/Magic

This is heavily inspired by the Wheel of Time magic system. We aren't playing the Wheel of Time, we're playing Planescape, but it has one of the better magic systems I've seen in literature and I like it a lot. There also aren't any of the gendered differences (aside from affinities) and the stuff about burnout, because that sort of thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the Planescape world.

BIG NOTE: I'm still working out the final costs here. Expect the sample character to change.

Basic Rules
This magic system uses a lot of pre-generated spells known as Weaves. All Weaves have the Requires a Channeling Skill Roll and the Noisy (Weave Sight) Limitations, as well as the Alternate Combat Value: OMCV (+0) advantage. Other mages can detect when you are channeling and can even determine what Weaves your character is using by making an Analyze Weave skill roll.

To use magic, a character needs to have a Channeling skill, based on EGO (bought as a Power skill), an END Reserve for powering the Weaves and Talents, and an Affinity for each of the Five Powers (Air, Earth, Fire, Spirit, and Water). Many of the channeling abilities have significant penalties based on their Active Points, so it is recommended that the Channeling skill be upgraded with at least seven or eight skill levels.

Becoming a Mage Checklist
To be a mage character, you must do the following:
 * 1) Purchase a 5-point "Weave Sight" talent. This gives you Magic Awareness (exactly like Mental Awareness).
 * 2) Purchase the endurance reserve.
 * 3) Purchase the Channeling skill.
 * 4) [Optional] Purchase Analyze: Channeling skill.
 * 5) [Optional] Purchase/Limit your Affinities.
 * 6) [Optional] Purchase Talents.

Magic
Magic is a natural resource that winds throughout the whole multiverse; its pulse causes the multiverse to advance and retreat. The extent of control over it depends on the user's skill and innate magical strength. [HERO Terms: Mages are required to purchase Endurance Reserves and all weaves must cost END].

Skill Roll
Both inborn talent and learned skill aid the mage in weaving magic. All spells are required to take the RSR: Channeling with the limitation -1 per 10 Active Points. Each spell will also list a difficulty factor based on the number of threads (-1 per thread beyond the first).

Affinities
Five unique threads of magic are woven together to create complex Weaves. Every mage has a varying degree of strength within these five threads. Referred to as Affinities, the five threads are represented by three differing strengths; Lesser, Average, and Greater.

The mage's gender plays a large part in the default Affinities for a character and the cost of improving the strength of a given Affinity. Woman are strongest in Air and Water and weakest in Earth and Fire. Males are the opposite. Both genders have roughly the same strength in Spirit.

Female mages start out with Average ratings in Air, Spirit and Water. It costs them 10 points each to raise one of those Affinities to a Greater strength. They start out with Lesser rating in Earth and Fire. It costs 10 points each to raise these two Affinities from Lesser to Average and another 15 points to raise each of them to Greater.

Male mages have an opposite allocation of Affinities. They start out with Average ratings in Earth, Fire and Spirit. It costs them 10 points each to raise these Affinities to Greater rating. They start out with Lesser rating in Air and Water. It costs 10 points each to raise them to Average and 15 points each to improve them to Greater.

It is possible for a mage to be weaker than other members of the same gender in a specific Affinity. A Physical Limitation: Lesser Affinity (Affinity) is purchased at the Frequently, Slightly level (10 points) to simulate this weakness. Only those affinities that the character gets at the Average level (Air and Water for females; Earth and Fire for males; Spirit for either), for free, may be limited in this way.

The Source Reserve
A mage must purchase an END Reserve to power his Weaves. The size of the Reserve is entirely up to the player, but the Recovery must be purchased just as large as the END Reserve times the character's Speed. The Recovery is pro-rated, basically meaning that the character Recovers enough points to completely fill the Reserve on each of his phases. The END Reserve is also an integral part of Linking and must be purchased with the Usable By Others advantage. Also, it is physically tiring to use the END Reserve, so Costs END must be applied to the Recovery as well. This may seem confusing, but it basically allows a mage to use magic without having to wait for it to Recover, magic can be Shielded (see below) and the character will eventually tire from using magic. All Weaves and Talents draw power from the END Reserve.

Note: Normally an Endurance Reserve cannot have the "costs END" limitation, but here it is specifically changed.

Tip: Depending on how many concurrent abilties you want your mage to be able to maintain and whether or not he has an expensive Talent (like Balefire) a good rule of thumb is to purchase an END Reserve of about 15 - 25, higher for more powerful Talents.

Example: Steffan the Asha'man has a Source (END) Reserve of 25 with a Recovery of 75 (Speed 3) (total 77 Active Points). He purchases Usable By Other at (+1/4) for a Final Active Cost of 98. He must then apply the Requires an EGO Roll (-1/4) and Costs END (-1/2) Power Limitations to the Recovery. The final cost of his pool is 54 Real Cost. This is a pretty powerful reserve, allowing Steffan to channel up to 250 Active Points. If he wanted to save points, he could purchase a smaller Source Reserve, say 15 with a REC of 45 ( 58 Active with Advantages, 34 Real Cost ). That would still give him a respectable sized Source Reserve.

Embracing the Source
Before a mage can form even a single Weave, they must embrace the Source. This requires an EGO roll and a full Phase action. While embracing the Source, the character is more aware of his surroundings and everything seems more real to him. To reflect this, the character should buy bonuses to PER with all senses, with the Power Limitation: Only while embracing the Source (-1/2).

Channeling Checklist

 * 1) Embrace the Source. Roll an EGO Check at -1 per 10 Active Points in the END Reserve. Just holding onto the Source is not very draining, it costs 1 END per Phase to hold. The amount of the END Reserve used to power Weaves dictates how much personal END is spent when the Source is actually being used to do something.
 * 2) Roll a Channeling Skill Roll for the Weave being Channeled. Calculate by how much the skill roll is made.
 * 3) Compare which of the five threads are used in the Weave.
 * 4) Multiply the value of the lowest applicable affinity that the character has by how much the skill roll was made by, after the Skill Roll Penalty (in other words, the Skill Roll Penalty is just a shorthand method of saying that the player rolled well enough to produce the Active Points necessary for a minimal effect).
 * 5) Multiply Lesser Affinities by Five x Number Skill Roll made by.
 * 6) Multiply Average Affinities by Ten x Number Skill Roll made by.
 * 7) Multiply Greater Affinities by Twenty x Number Skill Roll made by.
 * 8) The final product from above is the amount of Active Points added to the Weave. Each Weave has a notation about how many Active Points are required for each increment of effect. Unless noted in the Weave description or approved by the GM, there are no "half-increment" effects. If the player cannot generate enough Active Points to equal a full increment, then the last full increment, even if it is only the base success level, is used.
 * 9) If the Channeling skill roll is made by enough of a margin to push the Active Points high enough that the END cost would exceed the size of the Source Pool (END reserve), use only enough Active Points to keep the END cost within the amount of the Source Pool.
 * 10) Determine the final affect(s) of whatever Weave was channeled.
 * 11) [Optional] Roll for any physical or psychological complications on magic use.
 * 12) Record the personal END cost from using the Source END Reserve.

Detecting Channeling
Channeling can easily be detected by other mages and even some non-mages. All mages have a sight that works like Mental Awareness. To find more fine-grained information, those with an Analyze: Channeling roll can see what threads are used in a Weave and possibly what the effects are or will be.

The chance of Detecting channeling is based on normal Perception rules with a +1 bonus added per 10 Active Points being channeled.

Linking and Circles
Multiple mages may Link together to form a Circle. Female mages may do this with other female mages or with male mages. Males require a female to Link. Up to thirteen females may Link without the presence of a male mage. With a male mage, the circle may add up to another thirteen females and so on. When two or more mages are going to Link, one member is selected (usually the strongest in the One Power) and the others surrender their power to him (or her) allowing that person to draw on their strength to aid him.

In game terms, every Magic Pool is bought with Usable By Others Power Advantage. In addition, each member of the circle adds EGO/5 to the leader's Channeling Skill roll.

Boosting Your Power
In the Wheel of Time universe, boosts to the pool are known as Angreal and Sa'Angreal. These work in a similar fashion to Linking. They provide a Succor to END Reserve and a bonus to the Channeling skill roll. Keep in mind that Angreal and Sa'Angreal are both items and bought with the 0 END Power Advantage. That makes these items extremely powerful. For game balance, we're probably going to run it a bit differently: if you find such an artifact, it will boost your pool at the expense of extreme END cost. Or some other balancing factor. Whatever.

Shielding
This works as an Entangle. More rules to follow.

A Shielded mage may attempt to break free of the Shield with an EGO /5 + the strength of their Spirit Affinity /5 roll. For purposes of breaking free of a Shield, the rating is the amount of Active Points that the rating gives for each point rolled beyond success (5, 10, and 20 respectively).

Designing Weaves and Talents
Weaves are designed as powers. Typically, a Weave is built with few Active Points, just enough to create a very minimal effect. Additional Active Points are gained by having a high margin of success with Channeling skill rolls. Some Weaves have a set number of Active Points built into them to either best simulate the power under HERO rules or because the particular HERO power only requires that much.

Players begin knowledge with 12 Weaves.

Each Weave will have a notation describing how many Active Points are required to raise the increment of effect. For example, if a power costs 15 Active Points at base, then it will typically cost 15 points per each successive increment.

A mage may attempt to create a Weave spontaneously by taking a Full Phase and making a Channeling skill roll at -4, plus the penalty for the Active Points in the Weave. If the roll succeeds, then the character may use the spontaneous Weave once. He may also add it to his list of known Weaves, but must spend Experience Points to do so. At the GM's option, the player may buy part of the Weave at first, and then "pay off" the remainder of cost later. The full cost must still be paid in order to actually use the Weave without the -4 penalty.

Very Important: To keep things from getting crazy, all Weaves should have at least 10 Active Points for their base effect. If the smallest possible power effect does not amount to 10 Active Points, the mage should add Advantages until it has at least 10 Active Points.

Learning Weaves
There are two standard methods to learn new weaves. The first and hardest is study and experimentation. The standard rules for spell research apply (pg 88 5th ED) but the time and penalty for research is -1 per 5 Active Points rather than the standard -1 per 10 active points. Failing this roll can have disastrous consequences. If the Inventor roll is missed by more than 5 points the character suffers an END Battery drain equal to 1d6 per 10 AP of the Weave. If the character has no END remaining then they are effectively stilled.

The second and easier method is through observation of a weave being made. Mages must make an Analyze: Channeling roll, success indicates that they may try to attempt to recreate the effect. If the roll was made by more than 2 then it can be immediately attempted but if the roll was close then the character will need a day or two to review what they saw. In either case a standard Magic Research roll is needed but with no active point penalty. If successful they have mastered the weave.

Channeling Talents
Most mages have Talents; similar to Weaves, but more powerful. A Talent is purchased as additional Skill Levels, only for the purpose of increasing the Active Points of a particular Weave. Some particularly powerful Weaves are built on so many Active Points that they almost require the extra Skill Levels to generate enough Active Points to use. Remember that the END Cost for these mighty powers are limited by the Magic Pool, so not every mage will be able to use them.

Augmentative Talents
Some Talents are bought as Powers rather than by adding points to the Affinities. These Talents are usually based on either a Detect or the Naked Power Advantage power. When purchasing a Talent that has its cost dictated by the power of a Weave or other Talent, it should be purchased to affect the highest Active Point cost. Like Weaves, Augmentative Talents cost Real Points / 5.

List of Weaves
Some of these were taken from Wheel of Time sources, others I just made up on my own for my own character. If you make some up for your character, they'll eventually end up here.

Read Residues
All channelers can look at residues left very recently. Some, however, can sense the residue of channeling that is hours and sometimes even days past. A character with this Talent can make an Analyze Weave role to discover information about past weaves as if they were made in the present.

''Clairsentience [Mental, Retrocognition]: Reduced Endurance [0 END] (+1/2); 60 Active Points. One Sense Only [Weave Sight] (-1/4), Retrocognition Only (-1), Time Modifiers (-1/2), Concentration [1/2 DV] (-1/4).

Example Character
Let's take my own character, Lyrana. She's a mage known for her skill at healing. To get her started, we buy the following:
 * Weave Sight talent. Total points spent: 5
 * She is one of the strongest mages seen in generations, so she gets a 32-point END reserve (cost: 8). As her SPD is 4, she must buy 128 REC (cost: 85). It is Usable by Others (+1/4), so the Active Point cost becomes 10 for END and 106 for REC. The REC receives the limitations Requires an EGO roll (-1/4) and Costs END (-1/2), and thus the REC costs 60 points. Adding and rounding, we get a total cost of 70 for the pool. Total points spent: 75
 * All that power is useless without the skill to make it work. Thus, she buys Channeling (3 points), with +10 on the roll (20 points). Total points spent: 98
 * Lyrana is okay at telling what's in a weave, so she purchases Analyze Weave (3 points). Total points spent: 101
 * For Affinities, she starts off with Average in Spirit, Air, and Water; Weak in Fire and Earth. Her Spirit and Air are strong (20 points), as is her Fire (25 points). Her Water is Average (0 points), and Earth is Weak (0 points). Total points spent: 146.
 * Finally, we purchase her Talents. We already said that she was good at Healing, so...