A comment about fantasy RPGs

[womzilla]

rickj has been thinking about tabletop RPGs and made this comment about Baldur's Gate 2, a computer game based on D&D:

Anyway, playing Baldur's Gate 2 did remind me about one of the problems that I'm glad they're fixing in 4e -- the constant need for sleep. The game has pretty much been "we fight until the wizards run out of artillery and the clerics run out of healing, and then it's nap-time." Also, I like how most of their wizard characters are actually dual classed wizard/rogues, so they can use short bows and not totally suck when they're low on spells. I may have to try that with a character, either in 3e or 4e.

I replied,

One of the worst features of magic in most fantasy rpgs is how magic users (Gygax's generic term never seemed more appropriate) get used up.They have a certain amount of magic they can use over a certain amount of time, and then they're useless normal humans until they recover.

Real magicians (that is, the characters in good fantasy fiction)--they have limits on how much they can do, but they're always magical.They can sense magic, converse magically, predict the weather, unravel omens, draw magical sigils, light their pipes without a match,whatever. Even Jack Vance's wizards weren't so completely nonmagical as a D&D MU who has burned through all her spells.

I think that cantrips were Gygax's attempt to keep magic user magical even when they didn't want to burn spell points, but they're pretty weak beer. Has anyone ever written a fantasy RPG where magical PCs get to do magical things all the time just by nature of their magical background/training/sacrifices? (Well, Heroquest. Anything else?)

Comments

DragonQuest

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

DQ has spell magic which requires Fatigue (FT) to cast, normally recovered by sleep (supplemented by resting, hot meals, and expensive potions). This limits you to regularly ~10 - ~25 casts per day, depending on other stats and the type of spell. Most colleges have a very few Talents that don't require FT, covering things like special senses, college-specific protections. Then there are Rituals, that normally take an hour, and generally use no FT.
So mages are generally fairly useless in combat with no FT - a state that is also unhealthy for non-mages, as they are easier to hit. However, DQ doesn't have character classes, so you can put EP (and stats) into being good at hitting things as well as casting magic.

Re: DragonQuest

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

You know, I bought and read DragonQuest when it was published, and I spent nearly eight years working for its authors, but I never actually played it. I tend to think of it as "D&D with all the stupid stripped out", but that sounds substantially more different than I remembered, and close to exactly like what I was thinking of. I will have to dig my copy out and review it.