Nuclear Beasts

Alternate Magical Classes

Inspired by Pendragon:

• Compelling behavior... make animals obey you. Advanced lets you do it subtly, changing emotions? Eh, emotion changing being a Small Magick works better, since those can be automatically resisted by anyone aware of the attack.
• Talking to animals? Eh... telepathy... allows for mind-meld style communication, whispering messages into the wind, etc. Can theoretically snatch small facts from someone's mind or brain-blast them into submission (but since this does mental Harm, it can permanently cripple them).
• Blessings... small bonuses to particular stats or skills. Can also aid recovery rolls, fertility, etc.
• Should controlling/compelling spirits be a separate ability? Or just say that if you use Divination on a spirit you can learn its name and nature and gain bonuses against it.
• Curse. Penalties, bad luck, etc.
• Dispel: banishes spells & spirits.
• Divination: scrying the future, present or past. Can also learn about demons and gods.
• Glamour: temporary changes in reality that revert afterwards. Glamorous fire burns things with fake damage. Disguises. Constructing golem-like creatures that do what you want? Creating a false environment like a castle full of people... for a time.
• Healing: cures wounds.
• Necromancy: dealing with ghosts.
• Protect: barrier against hostile magic.
• Sacred Space: consecrate a region for improved spellcasting and magic protection.
• Shapeshift: probably too powerful for mice. Same for summoning Faerie Creatures (possibly), Weather Control, etc.

So... what are some appropriate small magicks and high sorceries, bearing in mind that all mousy powers are small in scale...

Telepathy, Mindspeech, Thought-Weaving, Magic Thought
Reach into another's mind and probe or interact with it. You suffer penalties if you are neither touching them nor familiar with them... and a small bonus if you are both?

Small Magicks: sensing someone's mood, whispering a message into their head.
Large Magicks: snatching an unguarded thought, having a two-way mental conversation, mental shout attack (can distract)
High Sorceries: snatching a guarded thought, opening a group mental conversation, crushing a target's mind with mental torture (can sometimes reveal deeply buried secrets but isn't reliable).

Spark
Small Magicks: light a candle, conjure witchlight about as bright as a candle, generate a small static discharge that can attract someone's attention. Zap a small creature like a flea or cricket.
Large Magicks: light a campfire, injure a foe with a small fireball, conjure witchlight about as bright as a torch, generate a static charge strong enough to make someone's fur stand on end, zap a mouse or rat-sized foe.
High Sorceries: light a wooden house on fire, blast a group of foes with an exploding ball of flame, conjure witchlight as bright as day or make a blinding flash, zap everyone in an area with electricity, attract lightning towards a specific tree or hill during a thunderstorm.

Compel, Command
Small Magicks: nudge an unsuspecting person or animal towards a particular emotion, paralyze a small vermin.
Large Magicks: nudge a group towards a particular emotion, hold a creature at bay.
High Sorceries: command a creature to do something it isn't deathly afraid to.

[Size requirements aren't really necessary if the scale rules make zapping a flea easy and hurting a huge creature very difficult.]

Banish, Dispel
Small Magicks: remove, counter or prevent a Small Magick, hold a minor spirit at bay.
Large Magicks: remove, counter or prevent a Large Magick, protect a group of people from Small Magicks, attack a spirit
High Sorceries: remove, counter or prevent a High Sorcery, protect a group from Small Magicks, banish a spirit.

Divination, Scry
Small Magicks: get a general emotional sense of the past, future or present of a target (good, bad, danger, joy, etc.), find a hidden mechanism, sense all nearby spells.
Large Magicks: get a brief glimpse of the past, future or present of a target, negate all blindness penalties by sensing your environment, contact a dark god or bargain with a powerful spirit if you find the exact procedure written down, study a nearby spell in detail (will also aid attempts to remove it).
High Sorceries: learn the means by which to contact a dark god or bargain with a powerful spirit, see a target's current state as though you were there, apply bonuses to combat by sensing your foe's actions before they take them.

Telekinesis, Tug
Small Magicks: move an object around as though tugging on it with an invisible rope or pole (Brawn 0).
Large Magicks: move an object as though you had your hands on it (Brawn 0), levitate briefly, attack someone with a TK shove or pull (Brawn Magic).
High Sorceries: move an object as though you had your hands on it with a Brawn of Magic, can include choking someone), fly briefly, attack a group with a TK shove or pull (Brawn Magic).

Bonuses for High Skills

Having a higher skill gives you special options and maneuvers. Most cost you dice (-1d or -2d for the level 3 ones).

So, 1 die in a skill means Trained (you're better at this skill). 2 dice means Expert (you've completed your training). 3 dice means Master (you've gotten as good as you can get).

Expert Manuevers:

• Take a -1d penalty in return for +1 Success if your final tally is at least 1 Success. This increases the chance of failing outright, but gives you better results if you do succeed.
• Add a +1d bonus in return for dropping 1 Success from your final tally (down to a minimum of 1 Success). This increases the chance of succeeding at the cost of reducing your chance of rolling anything really impressive.

Master Manuevers:

• Take a -2d penalty in return for +2 Successes if your final tally is at least 1 Success.
• Add a +2d bonus in return for dropping the 2 Successes from your final tally (down to a minimum of 1 Success).

For individual skills, there's often additional maneuvers listed.

Fighting:

• Expert: take a -1d penalty to attack two adjacent foes with your roll.
• Master: take a -2d penalty to attack all adjacent foes with your roll.

For spells, Level 1 spells are Small Magicks. They are easy to resist (any resisting dice roll automatic successes). Level 2 spells are referred to as True Magicks and are resisted normally. Level 3 spells are High Sorceries.

More Mouse Stuff

Magic skills:

Magic Tug: TK
Magic Spark: light and fire
Magic Think: telepathy
Magic Feel: emotion manipulation
Magic See: scrying
Magic Call: summoning

All of the above require a Magic rating of 1+. I could also see dividing them up so that some require a higher rating than even that... like saying that Magic Call requires Magic 3+. Each has 3 sets of powers, representing what you can do with 1 pip, 2 pips and 3 pips. This means that no mage PC is going to possess all 6 powers, at least not at start... I mean, you can, but even getting 2 in each would eat up all 12 starting skill points.

There's also Intuition, which requires no Magic rating... mages just tend to be a lot better at it.

Skills

1. Acrobatics (Agility): includes climbing and riding.
2. Archery (Agility): includes thrown weapons, too... or maybe thrown weapons should use the better of Archery/Fighting.
3. Burrowing (Brawn):
4. Charm (Cleverness):
5. Fighting (Brawn):
6. Intuition (Magic):
7. Leadership (Determination):
8. Lore (Cleverness): includes history, zoology, herbalism, etc.
9. Magic [6 types]:
10. Resolve (Determination):
11. Stealth (Agility):
12. Streetwise (Cleverness):
13. Tactics (Cleverness):
14. Thievery (Agility):

So, fighter types want Fighting (Brawn), Resolve (Determination) and Tactics (Cleverness). Probably plus Archery (Agility).

Social types want Intimidation (Determination), Charm (Cleverness), Leadership (Cleverness). Probably plus Performance (Cleverness; includes acting too).

Mages want 4+ magic skills. Physical Magic (Magic), Mental Magic (Magic) and Spiritual Magic (Magic) plus Intuition (Magic).

Thieves want Stealth (Agility), Thievery (Cleverness), Acrobatics (Agility) and Performance (Cleverness). Or perhaps Streetwise (Cleverness).

I could see breaking Lore up into Natural Lore (animals, herbalism, weather) and Scholarly Lore (history, cultures, legends).

Pendragon Magic

Pendragon's magic system had a cute bit, in that the "cost" of working magic was Time... either prep time beforehand or mystical sleep afterwards.

Some thoughts for a more flexible system:

• Your magic skills are penalized according to your total Time Owed.
• Aging: the fastest way of dealing with accumulated Time, you just physically age at an accelerated rate, aging 2 days for every day of Time you owe. This costs you in the long run, of course, but it's the fastest way to get rid of it... the aging can occur in mere moments.
• Sleep: you rest for the appropriate amount of time in a deep, mystical slumber.
• Preparation: you make the right preparations before-hand, assembling material components, meditating, etc. If you spend money and effort accumulating fancy ingredients, you can often cut the actual time spent in half.
• Blood sacrifice: you push the Time penalty onto someone else... generally squaring the cost and thus generally killing your victim in the process. Minor spells can be satisfied with the blood sacrifice of an animal, but more potent ones require you to satisfy the spirits with a more valuable soul... the rarer and "purer" the soul, the more they like it and the more Time you can pay off.

Multi-weapon Synergy

Wielding more weapons simultaneously is +1 die per extra weapon above and beyond what the target has to parry with. This doubles as the "flanking" bonus for teaming up against a single foe. Someone with 2 weapons can choose to split them up between two foes so that both foes fail to get that +1d6 on their attacks instead of getting a +1d6 against one of them.

A shield works the same way (if you have a shield + weapon vs a single weapon, you get +1d6) but the bonus goes to defense rather than offense.

Two weapons or a weapon and a shield both incur a -1d6 Agility penalty for doing things like climbing or dealing with rough ground or any other task where having at least one hand free is really important.