(You know, "Design Diary" is just one typo away from "Design Dairy," a place I imagine to be where they take the same old ideas and milk them for all they're worth.)

Magic Items
In Arcana Unearthed I'm introducing a new method of magic item pricing. First, I streamlined the item creation feats so they make more sense. In addition I added notes to many spells indicating price modifiers they would have if they were made into an item. See, one thing that makes item pricing so screwy is that, while price is based on spell level (and caster level), other factors go into the power of an item as well. Duration limits the power of some spells, for example.

Imagine two spells. One is somewhat better than the other, but the lesser of the two has a longer duration. Those two spells could be balanced at the same spell level. Make them both into permanent magic items, however, and they cost the same -- but you've lost the balancing factor of duration. Some spells are balanced on utility. For example, in D&D, consecrate is the same level as hold person, which is probably about right. But as magic items, they don't really have the same inherent value -- you're probably going to use your hold person item a lot more often than your consecrate item.

I addressed this problem by giving many spells modifiers to cost. Spells balanced by their short duration might cost twice or three times as much if made into a constant item, for example. Some spells are such that you'd only ever want to cast them a couple times. An Arcana Unearthed spell like raise the dead (similar to but not exactly the same as raise dead), you don't need often -- but when you need it, you really need it. Often, one-use items with such spells seem ridiculously low in price. A spell like this would carry a magic item cost modifier when placed in a one-use item (like a scroll).

Balancing Diminished and Heightened Effects
Okay, one more thing on the topic of magic and spells, then we'll move on to something else. (Although there's still more to tell you about magic -- I'll get to it eventually). Last week I mentioned that every spell has a "diminished" and "heightened" effects section. Creating these was an interesting endeavor. Some spells have obvious diminished or heightened effects -- you just increase or decrease the numbers involved and voila! But some were quite challenging. They ended up being practically different spells. A new spell called unknown, for example, which provides a character with some protection against divinations, can be heightened to protect a small non-mobile area (and all in it) from divinations.

This system brings a whole new dynamic to spellcasting. You might ready a beneficial spell that can affect one creature, a spell like giant's grip. You cast it on two of your allies. But when you go to cast it on yourself, you do so at one level lower than normal, because the diminished version is just like the standard spell but has only a Personal range. That's cool because it sets up the logical precedent that it's easier to cast spells on yourself than on others. But since it's not actually a lower-level spell -- just a diminished version of a spell -- you don't get access to the "self-only" version until you can access the normal version (which helps balance).

In some cases when designing these effects, I just asked myself, "Okay, what would I do if I was trying to create this same spell at one level lower or higher?" In others, particularly for the diminished versions, I didn't do that. I asked instead, "How might someone want to use a spell like this, but in a very diminished capacity?" Take a spell like control weather. I could have just reduced the general effects of the spell, but I realized that sometimes, a caster's just going to want a really, really small localized thunderstorm, or blizzard. So rather than "balancing" it for 6th level, I made the diminished version a very specialized use of the spell. You won't want to use it most of the time, but sometimes it will come in very handy. I like the customization aspect of the system that way.

 

DESIGN DIARY PAST ENTRIES

* More Magic -- January 23, 2003
"This week, I thought I'd talk more about the new magic system in Arcana Unearthed."

* Magic -- January 17, 2003
"As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system...."

* Design Decisions, Part Two -- December 24, 2002
"Here's a bit more discussion of some of the general issues I faced as I began designing Arcana Unearthed...."

* Design Decisions, Part One -- December 19, 2002
"Before jumping into another big area of Arcana Unearthed's design, like classes or the magic system, I thought I'd discuss some of the general issues I faced as a designer starting the book...."

* Arcana Unearthed Races -- December 5, 2002
"I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names...."