B/X Style or early AD&D Magic Creation Rules

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burbles

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I'm sure I've seen this somewhere, but can't remember where. I'm trying to find out how to reverse engineer spells, or at least create new ones. But to do this you need to have some base idea as to what level it is. I'm sure I've seen tables somewhere for working out what a new spell (given its casting time/impact or influence/range/no of people influenced etc.) level should be. Or am I wrong about this and misremembering this and confusing it with classes being reverse engineered for XP costs (in early(ish) Dragon magazine)?

Any help would be appreciated.
 
You wing it. Add a level for the variation add more levels for extra features. Try to gauge the new spell against other spells at the same level.

When the spell is in play, that's your playtest. Be prepared to make adjustments if its under or over powered. Try to get sufficient data.

This method is not foolproof, and you will make mistakes. But it will make you a better spell designer.
 
Try to gauge the new spell against other spells at the same level.
This is the test. Ask yourself, if this spell was available at my level, would I ever pick another one. If the answer is no, then you either need to rework it or kick it up to a higher level. D&D spells are too broad in effect for there ever to be a formulaic way to design them that really works, not that it stops people from making them.

When designing RPG spells, it also helps to think about what kind of challenges are bypassed by a spell.

It doesn't hurt to talk to other GMs as well. If you have a spell idea, bring it up here in the forum.
 
The problem is that there are too many spell levels. The first three are pretty tight. Fourth, fifth and sixth sometimes seem a little interchangeable in terms of power scaling. Seventh through ninth are pretty differentiated, although I'll never quite understand why magic-users needed two more levels. Honestly, I think DCC has it right and five spell levels are enough. Or you could go with some modern concepts that drop spell levels entirely, or break them up into three categories (cantrips, spells and rituals, or something like that).

But if you gotta do it the D&D way, I think Baulderstone Baulderstone has the best technique.
 
Or you could go with some modern concepts that drop spell levels entirely, or break them up into three categories (cantrips, spells and rituals, or something like that).

This is what Beyond the wall does with it's very toned down magic. Cantrips can possibly be cast at will, though require a roll or you're done and none do damage. Spells are basically 1st level spells and you can cast 1 per level per day. Rituals take an hour per ritual level to cast and often have costly requirements so you're not likely to cast them every day. (Plus 10th level is the max for all classes.) I haven't taken it beyond low level but it looks like it should keep casters from growing far beyond martial classes.

re: the OP, the earliest I know is a page of mostly useless advice in the 2e DMG - make damage comparable to spells of the same level, if if mimics a spell but adds something to it, make it at least 2 levels higher, then a bunch of fluff.
 
Any help would be appreciated.
I would buy the D&D 3.5 Spell Compendium as a reference, and apply Baulderstone Baulderstone suggestions with using that reference as a baseline. It worked well for my Swords & Wizardry and 5e campaigns.

Or

Use the d20 srd and Pathfinder reference from here

Finally here is the working document for my take using Swords & Wizardry as a baseline. It open content so feel free to use however you see fit. It not a spell design system but it does rationalize the spell from Swords & Wizardry while keep consistent with what they do originally.

Finally this document

and this summary represent what I think about magic item creation
Herbs and Potions

Magic Item Creation Summary
 
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The problem is that there are too many spell levels. The first three are pretty tight. Fourth, fifth and sixth sometimes seem a little interchangeable in terms of power scaling. Seventh through ninth are pretty differentiated, although I'll never quite understand why magic-users needed two more levels. Honestly, I think DCC has it right and five spell levels are enough. Or you could go with some modern concepts that drop spell levels entirely, or break them up into three categories (cantrips, spells and rituals, or something like that).

But if you gotta do it the D&D way, I think Baulderstone Baulderstone has the best technique.

Pretty much. Spell levels are one of those D&D sacred cows that never die but never really worked from the outset. They were never properly defined and there was never a reason to have 9 levels specifically. They’re just arbitrary and determining the proper level for a spell has always been pure guesswork, with wide disparities in power even in published materials.

Even with the classics Fireball tends to outshine most level 4 or even level 5 spells, which is why it’s one of the most iconic D&D spells. You don’t even need something much more powerful than Fireball most of the time, and that’s just level 3.

In regards to the OP’s question I think that saskganesh saskganesh and Baulderstone Baulderstone pretty much covered the best advice/guidelines for handling spell creation, despite my issues with the system.
 
This is what Beyond the wall does with it's very toned down magic.
Yeah, I was kind of cribbing from that, but I think there are other systems doing that now, too.
 
Even with the classics Fireball tends to outshine most level 4 or even level 5 spells, which is why it’s one of the most iconic D&D spells. You don’t even need something much more powerful than Fireball most of the time, and that’s just level 3.
Fireball is an important threshold and a real workhorse. One issue I always had with the spell list is that these kinds of disparities meant that it rarely made sense to memorize other third level spells unless you had a specific purpose in mind. Some spells are so limited in use that you will never bother to memorize them. I think the limited spell slots really exacerbates these power level disparities.
 
Fireball is an important threshold and a real workhorse. One issue I always had with the spell list is that these kinds of disparities meant that it rarely made sense to memorize other third level spells unless you had a specific purpose in mind. Some spells are so limited in use that you will never bother to memorize them. I think the limited spell slots really exacerbates these power level disparities.

I never liked spell memorization and never used it in my campaigns. Part of it was that I found the whole idea of “forgetting” your spells silly, but from a game play and GMing PoV is too much of a hassle to keep track of memorized spells. And many spells, like Protection from Fire, don’t even make sense to memorize unless you have advanced knowledge of what you’re gonna be facing, such as that you’re gonna be fighting fire creatures.
 
Fireball is an important threshold and a real workhorse. One issue I always had with the spell list is that these kinds of disparities meant that it rarely made sense to memorize other third level spells unless you had a specific purpose in mind. Some spells are so limited in use that you will never bother to memorize them. I think the limited spell slots really exacerbates these power level disparities.

Heresy I know but I think 5e's solution to this with Rituals and Spell Slots make utility spells much more useful and likely to be used.
 
The solution I adopted is allow casters to cast spells out of their spell book as a 10 minutes with a cost in ritual components. I didn't have the player track specific components but rather they kept a total value of the ritual component they had on hand. When they run out they need to replenish by harvesting or going to a magic shop.

The effect across the campaigns I ran is that the player will cast utility spells as rituals and memorize spells of immediate use in combat. I play with the ritual mechanics to create a variety of spellcasters. Along with this I try to leave the actual spell list alone.

D&D 5e does this by adopting a prepared spell mechanic coupled with nearly all spells have a leveled effect which allows a lower level spell to do extra duty as a higher level spells compared to prior editions.
 
Heresy I know but I think 5e's solution to this with Rituals and Spell Slots make utility spells much more useful and likely to be used.
I find it weaker compared to what I mentioned above with my Majestic Wilderlands. Now don't get me wrong it better. By why limit rituals to only certain spells. Shit if the players figure out how to get the ten minutes to cast a fireball in a combat situation more power to them.

Likewise prepared spells does make things nice but the actual number of what you can prepare seem a little low to me. But I haven't played any alternative to see if it is a bad thing to up it. I am torn in that I like how many spells have a leveled effect and it cuts down on the number of spells in the list. But it doesn't seem like it worth the effort for a OD&D based system to switch to it unless you couple it with the prepare mechanic. But I may try it at some point with just standard memorization.
 
I can understand the burden of memorization. In coding, I've used quite a few functions. But if I haven't used a particular one for a while, I have to look up the syntax. 5e has made memorization simpler and more reasonable. If you might want to use a spell twice that day, you don't memorize it twice. You just have a list that you remember how to cast at a moment's notice and freely cast within that list.

I find it weaker compared to what I mentioned above with my Majestic Wilderlands. Now don't get me wrong it better. By why limit rituals to only certain spells. Shit if the players figure out how to get the ten minutes to cast a fireball in a combat situation more power to them.

The issue is that rituals don't use up slots. This is good in that people are more likely to use utility spells. But some spells would be abusive if you could cast them 50 times in a day. But no limits but a gp cost would probably work as well.
 
Part of it was that I found the whole idea of “forgetting” your spells silly, but from a game play and GMing PoV is too much of a hassle to keep track of memorized spells.
Yeah, I've never liked the explanation for this. Sure, Jack Vance made it work, but he made a lot of weird things work.

When I go with spell slots, my preferred rationale is that mages can cast spells as much as they want, but it takes about 30 minutes per spell level. However, mages can create wands to store spells for quick casting. You just need to cast the spell normally and have a free slot to store it. And of course it doesn't have to be a wand, and the mage could split the slots among several of them if he doesn't want to put all his eggs in one basket.

I always liked the idea that you could make a wizard weaker by breaking his wand, without rendering him completely powerless. For me, this approach is an elegant solution but YMMV.
 
The issue is that rituals don't use up slots. This is good in that people are more likely to use utility spells. But some spells would be abusive if you could cast them 50 times in a day. But no limits but a gp cost would probably work as well.
Which is why in my rules ritual not only cost spell level squared times ten in sp (I use a silver based price list) they are a distinct resource you have to replenish and carry.
 
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