Action Economy Magic

Work continues on the Animancer class. The next step was deciding what type of magic system to use. To do this, we need to keep in mind our main goal for the Animancer, which was to give the players a wide array of tools to use during play.

First, I decided to piggy back off of the spell and ritual idea from Dungeons & Dragons. "Spells" in this case being something you can cast immediately (most importantly during "action" scenes, such as combat), and "Rituals" being something that takes more time. Second, because of how the Animancer gathers "memory" to use magic, I decided on an action-point based economy for spells. Third, I really like the sword-and-sorcery version of rituals, where in order to cast crazy powerful magic, you need certain ingredients, such as pixie dust, the stars aligning, or blood sacrifice.

For magic in general, I don't like the idea of using up resources, like D&D. I prefer games that keep the action rocking, like Shadowrun. So for each "action" spent during the turn, an Animancer can gather memory and gain a "Spell Point" (SP). Then at any time, the animancer can release his memory and turn it into a spell, spending all SP to have some effect. The difficulty of casting the spell will be directly based on the SP gathered, but the effects-per-SP should be exponential, to balance the time spent gathering memory, and the difficulty of casting the spell.

For rituals, I went the way of D&D and said that most minor rituals can be cast in just a few minutes with only a light ingredient or two. But, I will also be including an array of more complex rituals that require much more time and ingredients. The effects of these rituals, of course, will be far greater as well.

When animancers "level up", they'll be able to choose different areas of study, which will unlock new spells that they can perform. There's no spell levels, so the players have the option of unlocking the spells they want earlier.

As always, thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I love hearing them!