by
Mike Mearls, illustrated by J.P. Targete
Our
journey through Mystic
Secrets is almost at an end. By the time you're
reading this, the book will be available for purchase
in PDF format. The print release is November 1, giving
those of you who prefer paper to electrons a few more
weeks of waiting. Hopefully, these behind-the-scenes articles
have been useful. The feedback has been positive so far,
and if you have an opinion on this series, let us know
on the message
boards.
With
that out of the way, on to the magic!
S-p-e-l-l
Spells Trouble
I
have a bit of a confession to make: I don't like designing
spells. For some reason, I've never had the same affinity
for them that I have for monsters, feats, and other stuff.
When I looked over my outline for Mystic Secrets
and saw I had a few thousand words set aside for spells,
I knew I was in trouble. It takes me a lot longer to come
up with spells than other material. I had to let my nascent
ideas sit inside my head and stew for a while before I
was ready to tackle them.
The
key thing with spells is that they're all unique, but
they have to fit into the continuum of spell levels. It's
relatively easy to look at a feat and compare it to others
that give similar bonuses, but most spells do completely
unique things that don't have much else to rest on in
the system. Worst of all, at least for me, is that spells
don't always have an obvious analog in the "movie"
of a roleplaying game. I can picture what a cool new feat
might look like when a character uses it, but when it
comes to spells, I'm stuck on fireball, rope trick,
and other old standbys. I think this ties back into the
type of gamer I am. I'd much rather use an existing spell
to do something really clever than just make up a new
one. When I sit down to design spells, I always have to
come up with five ideas for each finished spell, because
a lot of the stuff I think of really has no point in seeing
print. Who needs a lightning bolt that just inflicts
cold damage? If I had my way, I'd invent a new magic system,
or maybe create new rules that expand how the core magic
system works.
But,
when push came to shove, this book needed spells. Here's
one of my favorite spells from the book -- a low-level
one. It's not very powerful, but it shows off my obsession
with bending and abusing spells:
KNOT
Transmutation
Level:
0 (Simple)
Casting
Time: Standard action
Range:
Personal
Target:
You
Duration:
One hour or until discharged
You
gain a +5 competence bonus to a Use Rope check you complete
within the spell's duration. If you take 20 or take 10,
apply this bonus to your final check's result.
Heightened
Effects: You gain a +10 competence bonus to your next
Use Rope check within the spell's duration.
Magic Item Creation Modifier: Constant x2
Sure,
Mystic Secrets has spells that allow you to call
a tidal wave upon an entire city or blast a creature with
the power of the sun, but this is the sort of spell that
I use when I play a spellcaster. My reasoning is pretty
simple: who takes ranks in Use Rope? Unless you've built
a character who is worried about letting captives run
free (or who may have hobbies that are perhaps best left
unmentioned in a G-rated design diary), you don't have
any ranks in that skill. This 0-level spell lets you secure
a captive or tie a knot like you don't have 10 thumbs.
Given Arcana Unearthed's
flexible magic system, you can afford to ready it without
leaving yourself short a critical, useful 0-level spell.
Okay,
who am I kidding? "Critical" isn't a word we
normally paste on cantrips, but knot is the kind
of spell that keeps those 0-level slots useful.
Rune
Templates
The
second topic for this week's installment is rune templates.
Last week, I mentioned that
I worked through a few ideas for runes before settling
on my final design outline. The concept of rune templates
tumbled out of that process and survived to see the final
manuscript. If there's one thing I like, it's trying to
look at the rules in a new way. If monsters can have templates,
why not magic items?
The
rune templates allow you to bestow upon almost any magical
item the traits associated with a specific rune. Have
you ever wanted to forge a shield that would never suffer
damage? Slap the eternity rune on it. The rune of fire
creates an item that gives you fire resistance 10, while
it has immunity to fire. Best of all, fire creatures recognize
the rune and are reluctant to attack you. You can place
these runes on any magical item, granting additional benefits
to anything from a ring of spell turning to a rod
of cancellation.
The
rune templates arose when I thought about magical weapons.
You can take a +1 light pick and make it a frost
weapon, or a sonic one, or one that can slay undead creatures.
Why not extend the same basic design principles to other
magical items? The basic structure of weapons and armor
make them ideal for this sort of extensibility, since
their value can be represented as a total bonus, from
+1 to +10. A weapon's price goes up exponentially as its
power increases, which makes sense when you think about
it. The flaming trait is a lot more useful on a
+4 weapon than a +1 weapon, since the item with the higher
attack bonus hits more often and thus uses its flaming
trait's benefits more often.
That
exact relationship doesn't exist with non-weapon items,
but there is a similar one. The more abilities you pile
onto an item -- especially passive ones that are always
in effect -- the more efficient an item is. Since you
have a limit on the number of magical items you can use
at one time (you can't wear two magic hats at once, for
instance) this stacking effect lets you gain more benefits
with fewer items. Thus, I had to price these effects with
that in mind.
Luckily,
that adjustment is easy to account for. Aside from this
advantage, the abilities the templates offer don't really
synergize with the magical items you place them on. Your
ring of protection +1 is more useful if it has
the fire rune template, but it isn't exponentially better.
The same benefits would be just as useful on a hat
of disguise.
A
Final Word
With
Mystic Secrets ready to hit the Internet, I wanted
to take this opportunity to publicly thank all the playtesters
who played such a big role in making the book better than
I could've made it on my own. Playtesting is the line
that divides a mediocre book from a great one. It's probably
the most important step in roleplaying-game design.
Frank
Carr, Bill Collins, Chris Cumming, Jay Imhoff, Geoffrey
Nelson, Del Shand, and Alex Yang all took the time to
type up their impressions of Mystic Secrets, compile
reports of their experiences with it, and provide a lot
of useful comments and insights. Along with the players
in their groups, they did a tremendous job. The magic
in this book wouldn't have been possible without them.
Thanks, guys. Take a bow!
DESIGN
DIARY—MIKE
MEARLS ARCHIVED ENTRIES
