More on Mages

So last week I mused on mages a bit - here's another post on the class.

So I read chainmail bikini's take on spell complexity and it rattled something in my imagination that I thought might be interesting to explore.

The idea that magic is difficult to master is a given in my world - otherwise, everybody would be doing it (though some very low level magics are fairly common - curses, charms, even potions might be considered "low level" magic in the sense that many people can do these things...). So maybe magic is complicated enough that there's a chance for complete failure, but it's also powerful and just unpredictable enough that there's a chance for wild success.

Chainmail Bikini goes with d12 and spell levels. Here, let me quote it:

Spell Complexity
When a spell is cast, there is a chance that it may fail, it may be delayed by one round, it may be cast normally, or it may be cast and remembered for re-casting.
Roll 1d12 and consult this table:
- if roll = 1, the spell fails and is exhausted from the sorcerer
- if roll <= spell level, the spell will be cast the following roundand exhausted from the sorcerer
- if roll > spell level, the spell is cast immediately and exhausted from the sorcerer
- if roll = 12, the spell is cast immediately and retained by the sorcerer

However, if I'm going to go with spell levels, I'm thinking that d8 or d10 would work better since there's such a wide opportunity for success, even with very high level spells... Alternately, one could use d20 and use the caster's level instead of the spell level (thus, a roll over the caster's level indicates success...wait, that means that as the caster gains levels, he gets LESS likely to succeed...no, that won't work - invert the table?)

CASTER LEVEL

if roll = 1, the spell is cast immediately and retained by the caster

if roll is <>

if roll is > than or = to caster level, the spell is cast the following round and exhausted from the caster

if roll is 20, the spell fails and is exhausted from the caster (alt - additional roll, if 20, critical failure of spell...heh)

Once a mage hits 20th level, there is only a 5% chance of any spell failing. That seems reasonable to me.

I might be inclined to use the Bikini's method, since I like the fact that higher level spells really ARE hard to cast - though, as I said, I'd probably use a d10 (1 always fails, a 10 always succeeds with the spell retention) which makes higher level spells more likely to be delayed (and thus interrupted). I think I'd add a second roll for either a 1 or a 10 for a critical failure or a dramatic success (with subsequent sub tables). I don't worry too much about complexity at this point (see my post on counter spells for some more complexity...).

Just another idea...