| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 30 Oct 2014 : 22:31:56
So I was reading through Magic of Faerūn, which as most of you know is a 3.0 and 3.5 supplement. There are a couple of things in here that I find really interesting, but I'm not entirely sure exist anymore due to the unraveling of the Weave and resulting Spellplague. I'm also curious as to how they'd work mechanically.
Mageduel - I think this was a pretty cool feature. Two mages battling it out in a magical bubble, unable to harm anyone outside of it, dealing only nonlethal damage. However, I've seen no signs of this being possible after Mystra's sudden death, due to the complete rewriting of how magic worked. 5E seems to bring back the older forms of magic, but Mageduels rely heavily on the old 3.5 rules, especially counterspelling actions, something that is now a simple spell of it's own.
Gem Magic - From my understanding, this exact form of 'charged magic' was destroyed due to the spellplague. It was a very old form of magic that was only being recently discovered. Does 5e bring back this lost art? (Also, does anyone know if 5e brings back charged wands and other items like them?) Surely what little progress that was made would set back, and all the old gems would have been annihilated. It would have to be completely remade from scratch.
Lastly, and slightly unrelated, does anyone know if Azuth is coming back and, by proxy of that, is Asmodeus still a deity? |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Sylrae |
Posted - 03 Dec 2014 : 19:01:37
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Ah, now that I like more. It will unfortunately make it such that a wizard may have to wear a bandolier full of wands to go with his belt pouches bulging with components and his backpack full of ritual ingredients..... who says wizards don't need strength.
Your wizards don't normally have lots of wands?
I make quite a lot of them, and toss them in a quiver of Elhonna.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I don't know how I feel about wands and such automatically recharging themselves... On the one hand, it's handy not having to worry about recharging a wand. On the other hand, though, wands were never permanent items before, and I don't like a simple charged item having effectively unlimited charges.
3.5 had wands that had 2 charges per day as an alternative to the ones that were 50 charges expendable once. There's also a feat that lets you burn spell slots rather than wand charges. So if you had a wand with 1 charge in it, you could use it indefinitely, burning your spell slots instead of that last remaining charge. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 03 Dec 2014 : 13:14:19
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
They really don't have that many charges. Also, if you expend all the charges in the wand at any time it has a 5% chance of decaying and becoming useless.
Wand of Binding has seven charges. It takes two charges to cast Hold Person and 6 charges to cast Hold Monster. It regains 1d6+1 charges per day.
Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 charges, and it costs 3 to cast Magic Missile as the first level wizard spell. The user may expend additional charges to cast it as a higher spell slot version. Regains 1d6+1 charges per day.
Things like that.
Ah, now that I like more. It will unfortunately make it such that a wizard may have to wear a bandolier full of wands to go with his belt pouches bulging with components and his backpack full of ritual ingredients..... who says wizards don't need strength. |
| Delwa |
Posted - 03 Dec 2014 : 01:16:42
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I don't know how I feel about wands and such automatically recharging themselves... On the one hand, it's handy not having to worry about recharging a wand. On the other hand, though, wands were never permanent items before, and I don't like a simple charged item having effectively unlimited charges.
Understood. I'm going try it and see how I like it. The DMG has a variant rule for making them limited. As Lyiat points out, they don't have many charges by default. The variant has them starting with the 20 or so charges I recall from 3E. |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 03 Dec 2014 : 00:26:48
They really don't have that many charges. Also, if you expend all the charges in the wand at any time it has a 5% chance of decaying and becoming useless.
Wand of Binding has seven charges. It takes two charges to cast Hold Person and 6 charges to cast Hold Monster. It regains 1d6+1 charges per day.
Wand of Magic Missiles has 7 charges, and it costs 3 to cast Magic Missile as the first level wizard spell. The user may expend additional charges to cast it as a higher spell slot version. Regains 1d6+1 charges per day.
Things like that. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Dec 2014 : 21:14:52
I don't know how I feel about wands and such automatically recharging themselves... On the one hand, it's handy not having to worry about recharging a wand. On the other hand, though, wands were never permanent items before, and I don't like a simple charged item having effectively unlimited charges. |
| Delwa |
Posted - 02 Dec 2014 : 20:17:11
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Just to confirm. I came across a magic item list for 5th edition play testing, and charged magical items do actually appear on it. So, yes, your Wand of Fireball will come back. Just with less charges, and will likely have multiple spells instead of a single one. Think less 3.5 wands and more 3.5 staves. It looks like they might regain charges every day. Also, you can mix potions now, which can... be hilarious.
Ooh, do we get to go back to the 2E wand of fire or wand of lightning? I loved those a lot more than the single-spell wands of the 3.x era.
Picked up my DMG Friday. I haven't gone through all the magic items, but I don't see anything that says a Wand or staff can't contain more than one spell.
The recharge thing is relatively simple. At the end of the day, a wand regains X number of charges detailed in the wand's description. If you use all the charges in a wand or staff, you roll a d20. If you roll a 1, the wand is destroyed. Otherwise, it recharges as normal.
I have seen rods and staves with multiple spells, but no wands yet. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Dec 2014 : 20:07:38
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Just to confirm. I came across a magic item list for 5th edition play testing, and charged magical items do actually appear on it. So, yes, your Wand of Fireball will come back. Just with less charges, and will likely have multiple spells instead of a single one. Think less 3.5 wands and more 3.5 staves. It looks like they might regain charges every day. Also, you can mix potions now, which can... be hilarious.
Ooh, do we get to go back to the 2E wand of fire or wand of lightning? I loved those a lot more than the single-spell wands of the 3.x era. |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 02 Dec 2014 : 17:19:36
Just to confirm. I came across a magic item list for 5th edition play testing, and charged magical items do actually appear on it. So, yes, your Wand of Fireball will come back. Just with less charges, and will likely have multiple spells instead of a single one. Think less 3.5 wands and more 3.5 staves. It looks like they might regain charges every day. Also, you can mix potions now, which can... be hilarious. |
| Penknight |
Posted - 14 Nov 2014 : 02:56:50
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Penknight
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Nah, that's always going to be a thing. They wouldn't just get rid of those options for a DM... At least I really hope they wouldn't.
I agree. I've been using the town that is covered by a dead magic zone recently in my campaign, but I honestly can't recall the name of the town right this second. Losing that feature would be a real shame, honestly. I know from reading about it that the citizens prefer it to have no magic.
Wooly, can you help me out with the name of the town?
Tantras, I believe.
Been super busy here where I am, but thank you for that, Wooly!  |
| Diffan |
Posted - 01 Nov 2014 : 11:52:09
Mageduel 4E
Attunement: Same as Magic of Faerūn.
Define Size: Same as Magic of Faerūn. If they cannot agree on size, opposed Arcana skill checks, winner choice being the one used. If there are creaures inside the arena when it's size is determined, they are instantly forced out of the arena's zone (not bothering with the Will save).
Define Preparation: Same as Magic of Faerūn. Again, if they cannot agree a opposed Arcana skill checks apply, winner deciding how many rounds. In 4E, I'd assume that 1 to 2 rounds is enough for a defensive spell because a lot of the utilities in 4E are Immediate Interrupt or Immediate Reaction based. You could, also, just by-pass this part of hte process altogether.
Enter the Arena and Begin the Mageduel: Same as Magic of Faerūn.
Everything else is pretty self explanatory and I feel works fine as-is in 4E. A PC going up against a monster is going to have a harder time because of the power disparity (but hey, dems da breaks) however a PC's effects are often stronger than most monsters. I'd probably limit it to normal creatures, disregarding Elites and especially Solo monsters.
As for counterspells, You could incorporate something like a Minor action or Free Action each duelist gets that can counter a spelleffect with a sufficient Arcana skill check (I'd say DC Hard at the appropriate level from the DMG) or even opposed Arcana skill checks.
You'd have to workshop it a bit to get the math down, but it's hardly something that I feel would come up often enough that it would a serious problem.
Using the Rules as-is for 5E mostly works. You'd have to change Will saves to Wisdom saves. You can still do opposing Ability score checks (using the primary score based on your spellcasting class). Again, 1-3 rounds of preliminary buffing, etc. |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 01 Nov 2014 : 00:00:30
Well, the new weave is based on the Demon Weave which was created with an awful lot of charged items. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 01 Nov 2014 : 00:00:22
Reading the rules about gem magic, I don't see why it couldn't exist in 4e or 5e for that matter. Basically for a feat you can imbue a gem with a spell effect that has specific conditions to go off. A feat (or even theme) should be easy to incorporate into either system to be able to do that.
As for actually creating the gem, using gold is probably the best way of going about it and removing the (IMO) unnecessary XP cost. So if I'm playing a 4e/5e Wizard and I grab the Gem Magic feat, I can imbue a ruby worth 25go. with any fire-basEd evocation spell or a spell with the Fire keyword. |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 21:44:34
Come on, guys, let's not turn this into a Spellplague fight now. Let's stick with what we know, and we know that 4e happened and is canon, like it or not. We know that Mystra is back. Does that mean the return of the above features, like charged magical items? |
| Diffan |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 21:32:28
quote:
Originally posted by dazzlerdal
I hope in the poll everyone says "we are pre spellplague" and then WoTC magically wave their hands and the 4e timeline goes away
What poll?
I certainly would never say something so terribly wrong. I think there's enough precedent that shows WotC intentions to remain 1480+ circa. Best to come to terms with that sooner rather than later. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 17:08:34
WotC do that? I am 99.999% certain that ALL WotC published material will be set post-4e.
But in the words of Yoda, "There is another". 
As for the Magedule rules in 3e, I think that falls under the category, "cool rules that nobody will use". Oh, I am sure someone, somewhere used them. Maybe a couple of someones... but thats not enough to justify space in a book anymore. Its pretty-much just 'filler' to get more product out-the-door, and I doubt they will ever be taking that route again.
If I wanted to have a (non-lethal) mageduel in 5e, all I would do is assign an arbitrary number of 'false HP' to each combatant (probably around 10 pts. per level), and then let them spell-battle as if it were a normal battle. Whoever wins, wins. That simple. No need to complicate things with extra rules. Since a lot of spells now have to be targeted (roll to hit), it means that lower-level casters have a much better chance of taking down higher level casters in such a duel, if they play smart and get lucky. In 3e, it would have been way too one-sided, hence the need for extra rules.
As for how thats possible without Mystra... well... we got Mystra back in 5e. In 4e Mages must have just blasted each other to pieces (or someone else was supplying the mojo for Mageduels). |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 16:25:29
All right i can take a hint. I will stop . . . for today |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 16:11:08
We all know what you want dazzler and your continued high hopes are an inspiration to us all :p |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 14:21:01
I hope in the poll everyone says "we are pre spellplague" and then WoTC magically wave their hands and the 4e timeline goes away |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 13:57:57
Azuth is on the official list of FR gods in 5th edition but the situation is currently more complicated than that.
WotC is currently in a sort of experimental phase. Unless a novel or sourcebook says otherwise, it's entirely up to individual DMs as to whether the status quo re: gods is maintained or not. Wizards will then informally poll the gaming community to see what the consensus is before EVENTUALLY getting around to making it canon.
At least that seems to be the plan - we'll have to wait and see what really happens. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 12:06:33
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Found it. Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide - Page 50
"However, some items created prior to the Spellplague temporarily stored charges of magic, such as wands and staffs. Such items either no longer work or dont function the same way they used to."
Fair enough. The good thing here is that it was written to have a LOT of leeway there. Note the word "some" and the phrase "don't work in the same way" which means it's very possible and even probable that some items could have remained completely unchanged. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 11:35:11
quote:
Originally posted by Penknight
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Nah, that's always going to be a thing. They wouldn't just get rid of those options for a DM... At least I really hope they wouldn't.
I agree. I've been using the town that is covered by a dead magic zone recently in my campaign, but I honestly can't recall the name of the town right this second. Losing that feature would be a real shame, honestly. I know from reading about it that the citizens prefer it to have no magic.
Wooly, can you help me out with the name of the town?
Tantras, I believe. |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 10:09:38
Found it. Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide - Page 50
"However, some items created prior to the Spellplague temporarily stored charges of magic, such as wands and staffs. Such items either no longer work or dont function the same way they used to." |
| Diffan |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 09:57:59
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
I forget where exactly it was mentioned, but all magical items with charges 'ceased functioning'. After the Spellplague things like a "Wand of Fireball" simply stopped working. This would include anything produced via Gem Magic.
Hm, funnily enough I remember reading the opposite. That magical items with charges maintained their function until the charges ran out. The problem was that after nearly a century lapsing between 3e and 4e, nearly all those items would've been spent by then. I'll look through some of the books and Dragon/Dungeon articles I have for some references when I get the time. |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 08:39:13
I forget where exactly it was mentioned, but all magical items with charges 'ceased functioning'. After the Spellplague things like a "Wand of Fireball" simply stopped working. This would include anything produced via Gem Magic. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 08:25:18
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
So I was reading through Magic of Faerūn, which as most of you know is a 3.0 and 3.5 supplement. There are a couple of things in here that I find really interesting, but I'm not entirely sure exist anymore due to the unraveling of the Weave and resulting Spellplague. I'm also curious as to how they'd work mechanically.
Mageduel - I think this was a pretty cool feature. Two mages battling it out in a magical bubble, unable to harm anyone outside of it, dealing only nonlethal damage. However, I've seen no signs of this being possible after Mystra's sudden death, due to the complete rewriting of how magic worked. 5E seems to bring back the older forms of magic, but Mageduels rely heavily on the old 3.5 rules, especially counterspelling actions, something that is now a simple spell of it's own.
Not entirely sure how the mechanics worked. However I'm faily competent that something could've easily be constructed with the 4e rules and 5e rules too, even with the counterspell available.
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Gem Magic - From my understanding, this exact form of 'charged magic' was destroyed due to the spellplague. It was a very old form of magic that was only being recently discovered. Does 5e bring back this lost art? (Also, does anyone know if 5e brings back charged wands and other items like them?) Surely what little progress that was made would set back, and all the old gems would have been annihilated. It would have to be completely remade from scratch.
Not really sure where they said gem magic was "destroyed", can you show me a reference that says so? Further, if one can use Rune magic (like we saw in PH3), I'm faily certain one can easily import something of a similar nature with gems. That being said, 5e resembles 3e in terms of magic, so I think you might be able to just 'port the system over with only a slight modification.
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Lastly, and slightly unrelated, does anyone know if Azuth is coming back and, by proxy of that, is Asmodeus still a deity?
No clue, though I believe his name was absent in the list of deities presented with the basic PDF update a while back. |
| LordofBones |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 07:28:52
The return of Azuth is called the Azuthing. Likewise, the fall of Asmodeus from deity to devil is known as the Azuthification, whereupon Azuth returned to his divine realm of Azuth.
I'm sorry, but Azuth just invites too many jokes with his name and realm being the same. |
| Penknight |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 04:39:00
quote:
Originally posted by Lyiat
Nah, that's always going to be a thing. They wouldn't just get rid of those options for a DM... At least I really hope they wouldn't.
I agree. I've been using the town that is covered by a dead magic zone recently in my campaign, but I honestly can't recall the name of the town right this second. Losing that feature would be a real shame, honestly. I know from reading about it that the citizens prefer it to have no magic.
Wooly, can you help me out with the name of the town? |
| Lyiat |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 04:28:59
Nah, that's always going to be a thing. They wouldn't just get rid of those options for a DM... At least I really hope they wouldn't. |
| Penknight |
Posted - 31 Oct 2014 : 03:41:44
I know the book mentions dead magic zones and wild magic zones. With the Weave being reworked, have the dead and wild magic zones disappeared in 5E? I know the 5E PHB talks about them, but is that more for an open play era rather than what is going on in the new Realms? |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 30 Oct 2014 : 23:00:08
At present, the designers have heavily tried to curtail the ability of mage's to multi-release numerous defensive spells, etc... for 5e. They have instilled a need to maintain "concentration" in order to keep defensive spells in check one at a time. Therefore, I don't see the ideas of hung spells in whatever form being a common thing for 5e (at least not yet, one can hope that eventually they'll come out with some rules for the more metamagically/spell dueling inclined of us). |
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