Erinbour: Of Magics and Greatness
Wanted to take some time and share with you the loyal readers a high level look at Wizards, Sorcerers and a bit of how Magic works in Erinbour. Today we will be focusing on Pathfinder conversions primarily as the descisions made will primarily affect that rule set.
To begin with we wanted to add our own stamp to Erinbour and wanted Magic and those that weild it to be one of the first things we worked on. Since we wanted Erinbour to be a High Magic setting we felt, if we get this right the rest will fit nicely. Now as I said previously Erinbour will also be about choices, and I wanted to make sure that if at any point we limited choice we returned something for that.
First lets talk about how Magic is viewed in Erinbour.
Erinbour is a world full of Magic. It was Magic that brought the Kingdom to its pinnacle and it was Magic that tore it down, and it was destroyed by a sorceress when the Queen Cursed her own son. From that day forward Magic is seen as a power that must be regulated, licensed and controlled. The people did not run from Magic they saw the potential still and grew a great university to teach and guide those who could afford such teachings. Magic is Heavily regulated and a Wizard must have the proper licenses when casting within the civilized world.
Sorcerers and those who cast by more natural means are somewhat austricised and feared. The cities fine Magic users hefty for unlicensed casting of spells and this has created a bit of a Magic underground for those who do not attend university proper.
So what does this mean for Magic Characters?
Great question. First we are limiting choice in that all Wizards are now “Specialist” wizards in that they have attended university and thus have a Major.
[Rules Brief Mechanically we are looking here at the Wizards Spells per day. We are altering the meaning here slightly. As a Wizard you choose 3 schools. 1 Major and 2 Minor, you will know and have all the 0 level spells from those schools. You will also gain a spell book with all 1st level spells from your school. As you gain levels you will add a 4th school and gain access to schools as your numbers increase.
What we are giving back to wizards for this limit in choice. You no longer have to worry about opposition schools in Erinbour. Learning one school does not mean schools naturally oppose each other. Secondly you gain 1 additional spell per day per level per the chart.}
What about Sorcerers?
Sorcerers are not formally trained and mechanically not much is changing but we are adding the ability to access “Wild” Magic (Name changes pending) this will allow the sorcerer/sorceress the ability to push beyond their means. Each time they use this power in a given day (Between 8 hours of rest) the DC goes up. So what they can do is 1 of 3 options.
1. They can attach a Meta Magic Feat to any spell even if they do not currently have the Feat. Base difficulty is to be determined basically DC 15ish (Plus 5 for each additional use of this ability)
2. Cast a spell not in your Spell List. Need to cast Web but you never picked it, that’s ok form the magic from the Aether and cast ti one time.
3. Run out of spell slots, pull magic from the air and over exert yourself DC would be 5 per spell level plus any additional DCs from the spell or use of the power.
What happens if I fail the DC on using WIld Magic?
Here is where it can get bad. You can burn yourself out and loose access to your spells until you rest or take damage or any number of backlash type things.
So that’s some of the decisions we made as far as Magic goes and how it affects the main classes. Feel free to comment and share your opinion. We are still in early development so some of this may change and it will assuredly get more shored up mechanically.
Hope you enjoyed.
PS A brief take on Inherent Magic
So Erinbour is going to have a unique thing. Inherent Magic, or Inner Magic, its everyones inate ability to pull on the Aether and potentially cast spells. If you are not a trained Magic User you can try to cast a spell by rolling a DC if successful you can wield the spell if you fail you suffer backlash. We will talk more Later.