Nuclear Beasts

HM Paralysis

Treated as the mental equivalent of wrestling... your magic vs theirs instead of your strength vs theirs.

Hm. Paralysis: mental grapple, your Magic vs their Magic + Brawn. You still have to touch them. On an overwhelming success, you can force them to marionette basic actions, but like a regular grapple you have to maintain it.

Spell brainstorming on effects:

Psychic effects (-2 at range):

• Touch translation (mental communication)
• Psychic Grapple (attempt to pin a foe with magical power)
• Reshaping stone and earth.

Long-Range Effects:

• Mental communication based on how well you know the target, not the distance.
• Speaking with spirits and demons.
• Visions of distant areas.
• Visions of past or future.

Necromantic Effects:

• Speaking with spirits and demons.
• Animating corpses.
• Commanding spirits and demons.
• Inflicting pain and injury by touch.

Subtle Effects:

• Manipulating someone's emotional state.
• Disguising yourself as part of the environment.

Kinetic Effects:

• Telekinesis
• Creating fire and light.
• Reshaping stone and earth.

Hm. Overlapping sets of powers seems interesting. Throw together 9 or so powers, then have each "school" get 3-4 of them.

Wizardry: TK, Spark, Shape, Compel
Sorcery: Beguile, Guise, Whisper, Mind-Speech
Necromancy: Animate Corpse, Command Spirits, TK, Shape
Thaumaturgy: Shape, Divination, Compel, Mind-speech

TK: 2, Spark: 1, Shape: 3, Compel: 2, Beguile: 1, Guise: 1, Whisper: 1, Mind-Speech: 2, Command Spirits:

Telekinesis
Spark
Shaping
Compel
Beguile
Guise
Whisper/Mind-Speech
Command Spirits
Divination

HM Magic Areas

From Knutsen's comment on RPG.net:

IIRC they were combat, stealth/thief skills, social skills and
languages, medical capability (either mundane or magical), and tool
magic which means the ability to deal with *other* people's magic via
abilities such as Detect Magic, Analyse Magic and Dispel Magic.

He also goes on to discuss "group vs individual" abilities. For example, picking locks is something that the group rarely needs 2 people to be good at. Whoever is best will generally pick all of the locks and 2nd best only gets called in when bad luck causes him to mess up. Combat, on the other hand, generally assumes that everyone will have to deal with being attacked sometime, so it's best if everyone can contribute in some fashion.

So, based on his areas...

Combat
Stealth/Thievery
Social skills
Healing
Metamagic (which could just be lumped in with some magics oppose each other)

And that largely covers it. Hm.

Spark: produce light/flame
Tug: tk

Shaping: mold objects
Healing: mold flesh, usually to restore health

Geas: lay commands on people
Beguile: emotionally influence people subtly

Glamour: illusions
Whisper: mental communication. Can produce hoards of other effects by bargaining with or tricking spirits.

I wonder if it's worthwhile to put some sort of upper limit on how much magic you can learn? Don't forget, there's also the advanced versions of each. To encourage a limited set, there could also be something like "the first level of magic gives you 3 points to spend, the second +2, all others +1. it takes 16 to master all 8 arts."

HM

So, state of the system...

I'm probably inclined to do a +/- system from about -3 to +3 with -5 and +5 at the peaks.

A bit D&D4-ish... races modify stats but largely amount to the same bonus. They also grant some skill benefit and/or maybe some powers.

Probably some sort of MP equivalent (Energy, perhaps) that non-mages can leverage too.

The magic system may get broken up into multiple sub-categories by theme.

Necromancy, Sorcery, Wizardry. Spirit, Mind and Body.

Necromancy covers undead, divination and communicating with spirits.

Sorcery covers illusions, mind-control and mind-influence.

Wizardry covers fire, motion and shaping.

(Sigh)

My inability to settle on a mechanic really cripples this. I need to set stuff in stone.

For example... reanimating a corpse. Can mice do it without the aid of a Dark God? Yes? No? Maybe?