Post by strategist on Jul 30, 2021 18:28:20 GMT -6
Hey all,
I've been listening to audiobooks recently by Chris Fox, called the Magitech Chronicles (7-book series) and the Magitech Legacy (book 6 was just released earlier this week). It's a Science Fantasy novel that's pretty decent; amusing at the very least, however I was interested in magic was handled; to grow in power, mages visit sites steeped in magic and generally undergo some either a trial or not (depending on the nature of the site) and acquire access to a new 'aspect' of magic or reinforce one they already have. What the focus of this post is on though is that in the series, equipment can also be affected by these catalyzations and either gain abilities of their own, new features, a new look influenced by what aspect they were exposed to, and also, over time, gain sentience. I thought equipment being affected by magic could be potentially rather interesting, though since it's me evaluating my own idea, I like it, but wanted to get others' thoughts on it to see if it's something I might include in a Pathfinder game. This would fully replace weapon enchanting, both in terms of effects and the standard +1 or +2 and so on, with the goal being to push players towards earning their enhancements through exploration and/or combat rather than spending a pile of gold. And also providing some magical development so traditionally mundane classes (ideally) don't get totally left behind by the magic users.
There's a couple components I thought of; the weapons gaining magic and the abilities they allow, the limitations and caps of that growth, weapon intelligence, and.. whatever else I think of.
Weapons would gain magic by interacting with spells and surviving the effects of powerful spells or rituals. Stab your sword to try to pierce a shield around a caster attempting to complete a magic ritual, and perhaps it'll gain an Abjuration catalyzation. Block a Disintegrate with your sword and it survives, and perhaps it'll gain a Transmutation catalyzation. Carve through a summoning portal, and gain a Conjuration catalyzation. Things like that. Each event would allow a catalyzation in one particular school of magic, since that's an easily available way of categorizing magic in Pathfinder.
Because these are powerful magics, weapon quality comes into play. Too un-artificated of a weapon, and there's a greater chance it'll break, and a higher chance it'll be fully realized sooner.
Artificed weapons, in Pathfinder, would be those that are either masterwork, or include some form of material; Cold Iron, Adamantine, that sort of thing, with a sliding scale where the more exotic the material, the better the chance of it surviving, and the more magic it can take in.
Realized represents some cap on the growth of the weapon; it has reached its full potential and cannot absorb any other magic. To get a better weapon, you'd need to replace it, either by building a new, better weapon and taking that to a number of catalysts, or by buying one that's been evaluated and is known to have a higher capacity and taking that around. Perhaps it's already been catalyzed a few times.
The exact abilities would vary, with two options when a weapon gets catalyzed. Either a weapon can grow in power, or become attuned. Growing in power would allow the weapon to be catalyzed in a particular school, and offer the weapon the ability to cast, depending upon the school catalyzed, with linear growth for each catalyst, tracked independently of each school. This ability to cast would be 1 spell level per catalyst. Go to an Evocation catalyst and you can cast an Evocation cantrip from your weapon. Go to a Conjuration catalyst, and then you can cast a Conjuration catalyst. Find another Evocation catalyst and then you can now cast a level 1 Evocation spell. Find yet another Evocation catalyst and now you can cast level 2 Evocation spells. The goal for this is to replace the portion of enchanting covering special effects, like Frost, and so on. These spells can be cast 1/day per, except for the cantrip which can be cast at will. You unlock one new spell per catalyst, either of the new, higher level, or of a level you can already cast, although your weapon will still count as that level for when it next gets catalyzed.
Attuning is the the replacement for the +1, +2, etc. enhancement bonuses. Attuning however is unique in that once a weapon is attuned to a particular catalyst, it can no longer benefit from catalyzations of other schools. However, every catalyst of that type the weapon goes through gets another +1. There may also be an opportunity of gaining special effects and abilities, however I haven't decided on how to best go about that yet.
Sucking in a pile of magic, however, is not without risk. As I mentioned above, the less exotic the materials, the greater the limitations. A masterwork weapon is still essentially a standard weapon with unremarkable materials, but is crafted in such a way that it can contain magic. A masterwork weapon without any special materials undergoing catalyzation has a 25% of breaking (1 on a 1d4), and is rather easily realized (again, 1 on a 1d4). They then progress from there (exact numbers tbd), but Adamantine would be the pinnacle, with a 1 in 100 chance of breaking, and a 1 in 20 chance of being fully realized. To put a hard limit though, no weapon can have more than 15 catalyzations; they simply can't contain that much magic, or they become a catalyst themselves, which can be quite a striking event... and damaging.
There is a cooldown period to being catalyzed, with 1 week between catalyzations, as the magic has to settle within its new form. And as catalysts are places of power, they're likely to have guardians of one form or another; evocation catalysts may have elementals, transmutation may have a series of shifting puzzles, and conjuration could have an assortment of completely random beasts that would have to be waded through, and so on.
So, what are your guys' thoughts? Would you be interested in seeing this in a game? What changes would you make?
I've been listening to audiobooks recently by Chris Fox, called the Magitech Chronicles (7-book series) and the Magitech Legacy (book 6 was just released earlier this week). It's a Science Fantasy novel that's pretty decent; amusing at the very least, however I was interested in magic was handled; to grow in power, mages visit sites steeped in magic and generally undergo some either a trial or not (depending on the nature of the site) and acquire access to a new 'aspect' of magic or reinforce one they already have. What the focus of this post is on though is that in the series, equipment can also be affected by these catalyzations and either gain abilities of their own, new features, a new look influenced by what aspect they were exposed to, and also, over time, gain sentience. I thought equipment being affected by magic could be potentially rather interesting, though since it's me evaluating my own idea, I like it, but wanted to get others' thoughts on it to see if it's something I might include in a Pathfinder game. This would fully replace weapon enchanting, both in terms of effects and the standard +1 or +2 and so on, with the goal being to push players towards earning their enhancements through exploration and/or combat rather than spending a pile of gold. And also providing some magical development so traditionally mundane classes (ideally) don't get totally left behind by the magic users.
There's a couple components I thought of; the weapons gaining magic and the abilities they allow, the limitations and caps of that growth, weapon intelligence, and.. whatever else I think of.
Weapons would gain magic by interacting with spells and surviving the effects of powerful spells or rituals. Stab your sword to try to pierce a shield around a caster attempting to complete a magic ritual, and perhaps it'll gain an Abjuration catalyzation. Block a Disintegrate with your sword and it survives, and perhaps it'll gain a Transmutation catalyzation. Carve through a summoning portal, and gain a Conjuration catalyzation. Things like that. Each event would allow a catalyzation in one particular school of magic, since that's an easily available way of categorizing magic in Pathfinder.
Because these are powerful magics, weapon quality comes into play. Too un-artificated of a weapon, and there's a greater chance it'll break, and a higher chance it'll be fully realized sooner.
Artificed weapons, in Pathfinder, would be those that are either masterwork, or include some form of material; Cold Iron, Adamantine, that sort of thing, with a sliding scale where the more exotic the material, the better the chance of it surviving, and the more magic it can take in.
Realized represents some cap on the growth of the weapon; it has reached its full potential and cannot absorb any other magic. To get a better weapon, you'd need to replace it, either by building a new, better weapon and taking that to a number of catalysts, or by buying one that's been evaluated and is known to have a higher capacity and taking that around. Perhaps it's already been catalyzed a few times.
The exact abilities would vary, with two options when a weapon gets catalyzed. Either a weapon can grow in power, or become attuned. Growing in power would allow the weapon to be catalyzed in a particular school, and offer the weapon the ability to cast, depending upon the school catalyzed, with linear growth for each catalyst, tracked independently of each school. This ability to cast would be 1 spell level per catalyst. Go to an Evocation catalyst and you can cast an Evocation cantrip from your weapon. Go to a Conjuration catalyst, and then you can cast a Conjuration catalyst. Find another Evocation catalyst and then you can now cast a level 1 Evocation spell. Find yet another Evocation catalyst and now you can cast level 2 Evocation spells. The goal for this is to replace the portion of enchanting covering special effects, like Frost, and so on. These spells can be cast 1/day per, except for the cantrip which can be cast at will. You unlock one new spell per catalyst, either of the new, higher level, or of a level you can already cast, although your weapon will still count as that level for when it next gets catalyzed.
Attuning is the the replacement for the +1, +2, etc. enhancement bonuses. Attuning however is unique in that once a weapon is attuned to a particular catalyst, it can no longer benefit from catalyzations of other schools. However, every catalyst of that type the weapon goes through gets another +1. There may also be an opportunity of gaining special effects and abilities, however I haven't decided on how to best go about that yet.
Sucking in a pile of magic, however, is not without risk. As I mentioned above, the less exotic the materials, the greater the limitations. A masterwork weapon is still essentially a standard weapon with unremarkable materials, but is crafted in such a way that it can contain magic. A masterwork weapon without any special materials undergoing catalyzation has a 25% of breaking (1 on a 1d4), and is rather easily realized (again, 1 on a 1d4). They then progress from there (exact numbers tbd), but Adamantine would be the pinnacle, with a 1 in 100 chance of breaking, and a 1 in 20 chance of being fully realized. To put a hard limit though, no weapon can have more than 15 catalyzations; they simply can't contain that much magic, or they become a catalyst themselves, which can be quite a striking event... and damaging.
There is a cooldown period to being catalyzed, with 1 week between catalyzations, as the magic has to settle within its new form. And as catalysts are places of power, they're likely to have guardians of one form or another; evocation catalysts may have elementals, transmutation may have a series of shifting puzzles, and conjuration could have an assortment of completely random beasts that would have to be waded through, and so on.
So, what are your guys' thoughts? Would you be interested in seeing this in a game? What changes would you make?
