Setting Seeds: Sympathetic Magic
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Bear with me as this isn’t a fluff piece as usual but rather a mechanical idea. I’m working on my own RPG system which I don’t want to get into too much since chances are I’ll get bored with it and abandon it pretty quickly…
But anyways, I think I stumbled upon a neat mechanic. I was looking for a way to allow for healing magic to be used as much as a player would like without having any limits on it such as mana points, uses per day/per encounter, etc.
What I came up with is the idea of sympathy points. In short, most healing spells and direct damage spells are labeled as sympathetic magic. Whenever someone is the target of a sympathetic spell, for better or worse, if it affects them they also gain a point of sympathy. Points of sympathy are lost after resting for a few hours.
Now here’s the interesting bit; all sympathetic magic gets a bonus based on the sympathy points the target has. So the more you heal someone, the stronger your heals on that person become, but also the harder an enemy’s fireball hits them for. And of course, that fireball also adds sympathy points, making other attacks and heals themselves stronger.
Too many sympathy points and you could be killed in one shot by even the weakest spell. Thus there’s no hard limit on healing, but you do accrue a bit of risk… It’s probably unlikely that one weak spell will kill you, and a single healing spell keeps parity with a single damage spell, but if there are multiple enemy casters the effects could become very nasty, very fast.
It also gives you another mechanic to play around with. For example, a mage might have an ability which doesn’t do damage but does add a number of sympathy points to a target, or which moves sympathy points between targets.
Another interesting thing with this idea is that it dictates a bit about the setting itself. This suggests a world where people are “magically inert,” but as they are affected by more and more of it they turn into magnets for magical energies.
So yeah… Just kinda had to get that outta my head. Toodles!
Not bad for an idea…but i’m just scared as how “buff” spells
(if there are any in your system) would also become overkill (I feel some dragon ballesque thing going :p). I just fear there might be a trap…And as game master, it might become a number burden, when you attack a PC with a spell, just how much damage to do you do? And beside the effect of spells, how would sympathy points affect the PCs actions?
The idea makes me think of World of Darkness : Mage the Awakening, with it’s concept of Paradox…fond memory of the wild effect
You could make the “magically inert” aspect of being human be the ideal. For instance hitting too high of a point value of sympathetic magic could cause permaneant mental disfiguration, disease or trauma. Like getting a fever… but magical
Not bad for an idea…but i’m just scared as how “buff” spells
(if there are any in your system) would also become overkill (I feel some dragon ballesque thing going :p). I just fear there might be a trap…And as game master, it might become a number burden, when you attack a PC with a spell, just how much damage to do you do? And beside the effect of spells, how would sympathy points affect the PCs actions?
The idea makes me think of World of Darkness : Mage the Awakening, with it’s concept of Paradox…fond memory of the wild effect