Suskeyhose
Explorer
One thing that I love in stories and in the Elements of Magic supplement that the O.L.D. magic system was inspired by is the idea of rituals and cooperative spellcasting.
At the moment the closest we have to the idea of rituals in 1.2 is using long casting times. This kinda helps some flavor a little as it makes it feel like preparation can help a caster do stronger things, but it's pretty vague on the details.
If we look back at the 1.1 elements of magic chapter extracted to its own book it still has rules for what it calls rituals, where a caster can spend money to pay for the mana or give bonuses to casting, and someone with no MAGIC score can use LOGIC with alchemy instead.
This is good, and I like it, but it doesn't really accomodate multiple casters working together or with careful preparation to perform great acts of magic.
I've purchased the Future Fantasy Cooperative Spellcasting rules from DriveThruRPG but it doesn't scratch the itch for me. It's a very specific flavor for it that isn't what I usually want for my games.
The two basic ways I am thinking of having this work is by using two different core mechanics of the game: simple additive tasks, and simple extended tasks.
These two also tie back into the Elements of Magic: Lycean Arcana rules for ritual casting. Simple additive tasks are like led rituals, and simple extended tasks are like communal rituals.
So for a simple additive task, casters add their MAGIC scores, and the single person who leads the spell now has this effective magic score and their own skill and equipment to a single dice roll that ignores their maximum die pool. This effective magic score sets the maximum spell MP that they can attempt to cast, as normal, and each caster cannot contribute more MP to the spell than their actual MAGIC score, and the full MP cost of the spell needs to be spent, as normal.
I leave it up to the GM on how characters contribute mana, maybe they have to touch the leader, maybe they have to be within 30' of someone else in the ritual. Maybe they need to see the caster. Maybe they just need to contribute mana at the right time. Maybe they have to cast a "blank" spell paying for range to get to target the caster and the extra mana is contributed to the spell (this way is likely to result in wasting a lot of mana, maybe this is what you want).
This type of spellcasting can work, but is fundamentally more risky than a single spellcaster casting the spell. Someone at an appropriate grade to cast a spell of the MP cost desired will usually have higher skill and better equipment than the leader of the ritual, leading to failure more often than a higher level spellcaster would.
Then, for a simple extended task, I would probably introduce a different DC for spellcasting, maybe 3 + MP instead of 10 + MP, and increase the maximum spell MP a caster can use based on the time increment of the extended task. Maybe +5 for quick, +10 for minor, +15 for major, +20 for extensive, and +25 for epic. Then at each time increment any caster who is contributing to the spell expends their MAGIC score in MP, and makes a check.
Once the required successes are hit, the spell is cast. Once the required failures are hit, I'd probably introduce spell mishaps. Then I'd make it so that any mage who starts to cast a spell this way must see it through to completion. Each time increment they roll and spend the MP. If the caster has less MP than their MAGIC score they expend the rest, make a roll with the DC increased by how many MP they fell short, and gain a persistent level of Fatigued. They will then be ejected from the spell and cannot rejoin it, even if they regain MP. For a minor or lesser extended task, this probably just ends the spell if the last caster is ejected from the spell, but for a major or greater one it probably creates a mishap.
For this type of communal spellcasting each contributing caster is making a roll all their own, so I'd probably mandate that they be within range of both the target and another caster in the ritual to contribute. Leaving that range probably either triggers a mishap, or drains the leaving caster and gives them a persistent level of Fatigued.
I'm thinking required successes should baseline at 2, and maybe give +1d6 to each contributing caster for each extra required check?
I haven't done any math on all this to see whether any of it might be close to balanced. Probably not, I'll need to tune it a lot.
That wraps up my first thoughts on a cooperative casting system for the game, what are your thoughts?
At the moment the closest we have to the idea of rituals in 1.2 is using long casting times. This kinda helps some flavor a little as it makes it feel like preparation can help a caster do stronger things, but it's pretty vague on the details.
If we look back at the 1.1 elements of magic chapter extracted to its own book it still has rules for what it calls rituals, where a caster can spend money to pay for the mana or give bonuses to casting, and someone with no MAGIC score can use LOGIC with alchemy instead.
This is good, and I like it, but it doesn't really accomodate multiple casters working together or with careful preparation to perform great acts of magic.
I've purchased the Future Fantasy Cooperative Spellcasting rules from DriveThruRPG but it doesn't scratch the itch for me. It's a very specific flavor for it that isn't what I usually want for my games.
The two basic ways I am thinking of having this work is by using two different core mechanics of the game: simple additive tasks, and simple extended tasks.
These two also tie back into the Elements of Magic: Lycean Arcana rules for ritual casting. Simple additive tasks are like led rituals, and simple extended tasks are like communal rituals.
So for a simple additive task, casters add their MAGIC scores, and the single person who leads the spell now has this effective magic score and their own skill and equipment to a single dice roll that ignores their maximum die pool. This effective magic score sets the maximum spell MP that they can attempt to cast, as normal, and each caster cannot contribute more MP to the spell than their actual MAGIC score, and the full MP cost of the spell needs to be spent, as normal.
I leave it up to the GM on how characters contribute mana, maybe they have to touch the leader, maybe they have to be within 30' of someone else in the ritual. Maybe they need to see the caster. Maybe they just need to contribute mana at the right time. Maybe they have to cast a "blank" spell paying for range to get to target the caster and the extra mana is contributed to the spell (this way is likely to result in wasting a lot of mana, maybe this is what you want).
This type of spellcasting can work, but is fundamentally more risky than a single spellcaster casting the spell. Someone at an appropriate grade to cast a spell of the MP cost desired will usually have higher skill and better equipment than the leader of the ritual, leading to failure more often than a higher level spellcaster would.
Then, for a simple extended task, I would probably introduce a different DC for spellcasting, maybe 3 + MP instead of 10 + MP, and increase the maximum spell MP a caster can use based on the time increment of the extended task. Maybe +5 for quick, +10 for minor, +15 for major, +20 for extensive, and +25 for epic. Then at each time increment any caster who is contributing to the spell expends their MAGIC score in MP, and makes a check.
Once the required successes are hit, the spell is cast. Once the required failures are hit, I'd probably introduce spell mishaps. Then I'd make it so that any mage who starts to cast a spell this way must see it through to completion. Each time increment they roll and spend the MP. If the caster has less MP than their MAGIC score they expend the rest, make a roll with the DC increased by how many MP they fell short, and gain a persistent level of Fatigued. They will then be ejected from the spell and cannot rejoin it, even if they regain MP. For a minor or lesser extended task, this probably just ends the spell if the last caster is ejected from the spell, but for a major or greater one it probably creates a mishap.
For this type of communal spellcasting each contributing caster is making a roll all their own, so I'd probably mandate that they be within range of both the target and another caster in the ritual to contribute. Leaving that range probably either triggers a mishap, or drains the leaving caster and gives them a persistent level of Fatigued.
I'm thinking required successes should baseline at 2, and maybe give +1d6 to each contributing caster for each extra required check?
I haven't done any math on all this to see whether any of it might be close to balanced. Probably not, I'll need to tune it a lot.
That wraps up my first thoughts on a cooperative casting system for the game, what are your thoughts?
Last edited:
