The Deal with Magecraft, and what it should be

PingEdit: Merged Discussion starts Here

So, there's been a lot of talk about how MAgecraft creates problems. In utility, unlike combat versatility can often be the name of the game. It's not about power, it's about having the right answer to the puzzle at hand. To have the right answers at the right times, players need a variety of skills specialization and tool.

Or, you know, Magecraft. MAgecraft does anything. Granted, it does so with greater difficulty - if the DCs are handled just right, MAgecraft can be fair.
But there are issues with just saying that.
1) The DCs have to be handled carefully. For many DMs, that's a lot to ask, even with examples it's easy to let Magecraft be OP, or just frustrate the player by making almost everything fail.
2) The ability to try at everything can feel overshadowing. Sure, the MC guy might fail sometimes, or often - but in almost every situation, he's got the tools to try. The Magecraft guy is always there to attempt anything, and it can make the versatility feel overdone to other players. Furthermore, it makes Arcana become the Omniskill. Not all skills are created equal, sure, but Arcana doesn't... not have a shot at anything, even if it's weaker at things than a specialized skill, it's the only skill that has no hard boundaries.
3) It's shockingly spammable. This ties into (2), and (1) really, but it's also kind of it's own problem. It's ability to do anything *and* be at-will means a Magecraft player can annoyingly say "I roll to do this. Okay, now I roll to do this. Now I try to do this. Now this. I'm going to try to do this." Other players are left rolling their eyes at the MC player, and the DM is hurredly trying to figure out which rolls (s)he should allow to work. Perhaps most MC players don't abuse it to this extent, but it can happen. I recently played in a short, silly one-shot with Lapis, and (s)he illustrated the extent to which a Magecraft player can be irritating by taking every opportunity to abuse it. At the time it was mostly funny, given the style of the adenture, but it became all-too-clear to me and our DM just how annoying a magecraft player could be.

Looking at the problems Magecraft has, I reflect on why we put it in. Two reasons, one because improvised magic made sense in many settings, seems like there should be a talent for it. But what inspired that was, as I've explained before, the fun I had playing my wizard in 4e where Dan bent the rules and let me do magic with Arcana.
But I could never pull magic out of thin air. Magecraft's capabilities are far more than Kindulas was allowed with a mere skillcheck. Kindulas interacted with existant magic. I could dispel, reprogram, and overcharge. I could bend time vortexes, I could back-trace scrying. I could free minds from a Psion, I could speed up our flying castle. I could do what the Spelljacker destiny did.
I could *not* pull magic out of thin air.
I believe that that, in combination with being At Will, is Magecraft's core fault. What the system really needs is not a "Roll magic to do a thing," but rather Magecraft should be limited to interacting with existent enchantments and spells. It should be an at will, no-bonus version of the Spelljacker talents. This could possibly not require a prerequisite either.

Now, the other problem was Magecraft being at-will, and making Arcana an omniskill. It might also be okay to have something with the endless capabilities of Magecraft, but as an X/Day, with no skill attached. And not a skill of your choice - there would be no skill bonus here. Rather, you could expend X uses to gain a +X bonus. This would cut the crazy spamming part, and the problem of Arcana feeling overly-useful. Granted, this doesn't totally solve the having one utility talent with all capabilities, but the fact that you can run out mostly solves that. The only issue is we'd still have DMs asking "Can- can I just let him/her do that??"

>It should be an at will, no-bonus version of the Spelljacker talents. This could possibly not require a prerequisite either.


This is great and what magecraft really should be. Totally agreed do this... and.. just leave the old version dead in buried in a ditch. It doesn't need any form of revive.

This again?

Sure you can limit magecraft to X/day but, then we're not playing an MLP game anymore because nobody will use magecraft for trivial stuff. It will then only be used to "solve the problem" and nothing else. Also your proposition makes the Arcana skill practically useless as it now does almost nothing. But largely, people will either A) Ignore that at-will Magecraft no longer officially exists and use it anyway (which means it'll have solved nothing) or B) Cry, complain, and argue with their GMs to let them use the no longer official Magecraft basically all the time (which means you just created a problem).

You're right of course, Magecraft is far from perfect. However, these is no perfect balance to be achieved here. There's either "I can do flavorful stuff because it's cool whenever I like" or "I can "solve the problem" by shouting "MAGIC" at it a certain limited amount." Yes, the first way means sometimes, when GMs don't do their job properly, we have issues. The second way means we can't have flavor because some people need to set down limits that make sense/cease complaining about their GMs putting down sensible limits. Heck, this is why I was against you guys putting example DCs in there in the first place. People don't look at examples and actually think "just an example" they think "this is how it should be and is the only way it works properly, everyone will die if I fiddle with things, OMG NO FIDDLING!" If the example DCs weren't there for players to point at and complain to their GMs about or to make GMs think the guy who managed to minmax his way into a +40 Arcana bonus can do whatever the heck he wants, people would be doing their own thinking about these things more and we'd have less problems.

So yeah, you can try to "fix" "the Magecraft problem" but, you're just going to break things more. Because what you actually need to fix is people's perceptions and behaviors, not the mechanic. (I will admit that Magecraft isn't balanced but, any version of Magecraft would be unbalanced, it's not a concept you can balance. And it's not a mechanic you can remove from the system because if you do, this system no longer serves its purpose.)

I don't know
I honestly think an at will Fiddle with magical effects
Would be enough for the setting: it's not broken, It allows the Arcana user to feel special without essentially walking all over all the other stats and would be a really beneficial system as is. I do agree however, making it an X/day ability is just going to make the whole thing pointless and in some ways make Min/Maxing for it worse cause it'll be the mentality of "Well I need the giant base skill so that whenever a situation comes up I won't fail".

Let it fiddle with magical effects, and screw the rest of it. If you want more spells, create Utility talents for them.

Right Hayate, because the only things unicorns use magic on is magic. Note: This basically never happens in the show. Especially not compared to how many other ways they do use magic. So....no. That's not enough for the setting.

Ramsus wrote:Sure you can limit magecraft to X/day but, then we're not playing an MLP game anymore because nobody will use magecraft for trivial stuff.

Have you seen the show? Because no one uses magic for trivial stuff. Magic is a big deal in the show, and most unicorns can't pull off the stuff magecraft allows. Ponykinesis, and some magic related to your special talent- that's what MLP has to say on the matter.

Magecraft isn't even designed to be used for trivial stuff, its designed to be used by god moding mage characters to use magic to be amazing and over the top- or more apropriately, to be used like Kindulas said, to influence and alter magic already in play, not do whatever you want whenever you want.

I don't know that the proposed idea would fix it. It seems like you're spraying febreeze instead of washing the sheets. But at least the problems with it are finally being addressed.

As far as the "minor magical fiddle", I have to say I approve - though it should probably be present both as a racial and a utility (for the magically inclined, such as unicorns). Although, depending on its abilities, wouldn't that require a rework of how Spelljacker works now? Spelljacker in itself is pretty neat for such a purpose, but it takes (literal, depending on session frequency and leveling times) ages to actually get it, it's not something you start out with.

Kindulas wrote:Now, the other problem was Magecraft being at-will, and making Arcana an omniskill. It might also be okay to have something with the endless capabilities of Magecraft, but as an X/Day, with no skill attached. And not a skill of your choice - there would be no skill bonus here. Rather, you could expend X uses to gain a +X bonus. This would cut the crazy spamming part, and the problem of Arcana feeling overly-useful. Granted, this doesn't totally solve the having one utility talent with all capabilities, but the fact that you can run out mostly solves that. The only issue is we'd still have DMs asking "Can- can I just let him/her do that??"

This sounds a lot like what the "Talent Specialization" supplement allows you to do with spare/unspent points. How would this be balanced, against stuff like Freaky Knowledge, or the current skill-boosting ability of Magic Points?

I have to also point out, that one of the appeals of Magecraft is the whole "create/invent magic" aspects, which allows for some RPing and creative character building. The propositions would make players unable to do that (only affecting existing magic, which they are unable to 'create' as far as mechanics go), outside of "Magical Tricks" or utilities/racials (which might not include any that aren't "magical" enough, or flavored as such). Maybe there should also be a (obviously limited) option of minor magic creation? Something akin to Magical Tricks in power/nature, but a lot more flexibility?

For instance, an ability that lets you do an arcana check to create a "scroll of magic", its power/effects limited by your arcana check, number of words, or something similar. You can have only one of these scrolls at a time, and they take a while to make properly, vanishing after use.

We've seen Twilight do it, and obviously other magic users must have as well (Starswirl, and probably others).

What magical effects are you guys even talking about them "fiddling" with? And who would cast them? Because your character sure as hell has no way of doing so. Or at least never will, as you're not going to waste uses of Magecraft to change the style of your clothes where you could be throwing down a curse or throwing a fireball instead. So... yeah, by this logic, the only effects there are to fiddle with around are either done by mages who totally suck and the best they could do was magically lock a door or the only time you can use that feature is to counter Cloudkill.

Edit: Seriously, if you guys want to play a game about minmaxing and having basically no ability to add flavor or creativity, why aren't you just playing D&D 3.5?

We don't want to play with Minmaxing
That's why there is so much hate on Magecraft currently, cause it encourages it beyond belief. The effects you fiddle with would be cast probably by high level or really high power NPC mages(Maybe effects lingering around from when Starswirl was experimenting with time magic for example.)

Being able to make up your own Magic "On the Spot" is insane, I'm sorry but it is. And it's in no way "To the show" the only example we've seen of made up magic is essentially Starswirls book, whose spell didn't even work and he was ment to be some god level magician. So why would a arcana 6 earth pony be able to do it(Don't give me that look, you and I both know races are taking whatever they want now.)

Sure, Twilight learns new spells a lot, but through books and practice even she can't just make up whatever she wants and she's the element of magic. You want to keep Magecraft the old way? Only way I could think of doing that, while keeping it fair and sitting it within the setting is by making it part of a lvl 10 destiny power.

Edit: Shouldn't be saying hell, it's rude.

Ramsus wrote:What magical effects are you guys even talking about them "fiddling" with? And who would cast them? Because your character sure as hell has no way of doing so. Or at least never will, as you're not going to waste uses of Magecraft to change the style of your clothes where you could be throwing down a curse or throwing a fireball instead. So... yeah, by this logic, the only effects there are to fiddle with around are either done by mages who totally suck and the best they could do was magically lock a door or the only time you can use that feature is to counter Cloudkill.

I think the idea is that any magic that is in ones surrounding (for instance, magical devices, or employment of magic for chores and convenience) can be manipulated, and potentially utilities one has, so you'd hardly have "nothing to use". Any magic the DM sets upon your path would be yours to screw around with, much like how any machinery set before a machinist/inventor-type character.

But there is a point - giving a character an ability to fiddle with magic, but without any ability to make such magic, essentially makes them entirely dependent on the DM to provide them stuff their ability would be useful with. You'd get the how Endurance works right now - useful when you need it, but otherwise useless. The same applies to stuff like Spelljacker / Magical Attunement as well - you need a lot of magic in your setting to be able to use it commonly. A character would need some clearly-defined way of 'making' magic.

For instance, something like this:

Write Magic:

Trivial things: We still have Magical Tricks. You can change your outfit with Magical Tricks. The whole point of magecraft is the big stuff.
Arcana's usefulness: The spelljacker-esque Magecraft will still key off Arcana

Also Hayate, your second comment about making min/maxing worse... how does it relate to having a big base skill? the X/Day wouldn't have any skill to work with - or are you saying one could try to have a big skill to fall back on if the Magecraft thing works well enough? I'm not convinced we should or shouldn't have it, still, but chainging magecraft to fiddling with existent magic I think makes all of the sense.

So, no, magic is not only used on magic, but that's what other talents are for. Yes it's limiting, but to a likely necessary extent. And... the argument that "It won't fix the problems because people won't pay attention to the new rules" is not a mentality that any decisions can be made on. I mean what, "Let's not make a necessary nerf because people will just play with the old broken version anyway?" That's no excuse not to fix something.

I have thought of a utility talent possibility that might help, wherein you basically predefine a magecraft ability, and 1/Day cast that with some kind of static bonus, giving us a "write spell" talent. HOWEVER, I wonder if allowing people to just come up with whatever is really a good idea at all. That's the thing that bugs me about all of this, we'll still have the problem of people not always being sure or agreeing on what's fair for a custom effect, though having to come up with it ahead of time would stop the "almost any tool for any situation, spammable" thing.

Spelljacker wouldn't need any edits because it basically already was a specific use of magecraft - with a +30 bonus. It's ALL about the +30 bonus, really. It's supposed to read "Unless you're trying something crazy, you'll succeed - and we'll get you a long ways to succeeding on crazy stuff too.

Kindulas wrote:
Also Hayate, your second comment about making min/maxing worse... how does it relate to having a big base skill? the X/Day wouldn't have any skill to work with - or are you saying one could try to have a big skill to fall back on if the Magecraft thing works well enough? I'm not convinced we should or shouldn't have it, still, but chainging magecraft to fiddling with existent magic I think makes all of the sense.

No I was reffering to Ramsus comment about us wanting to play with Minmaxing, I assume he was talking about the current version of Magecraft and responded in kind. I do agree with making Magecraft all about fiddling with existing effects is a good, no great idea, as stated before.

And I also gree with the "letting people come up with there own stuff"
If you need to do that, suggest a Utility talent being able to make stuff up on the fly doesn't fit the show world and can cause tons of arguments and potential game breakage.

I give up. Have fun breaking the system so that nobody can use it except in the incredibly specific and flavorless way you guys want. I'm just going to make the case to any GM I have running a game where I want to use something like Magecraft (ie, magical effects that aren't all just the craziest bullshit solve every problem I can think of stuff all the time) that, unlike certain people who forced the talent to be removed from the system because they couldn't handle the responsibility reasonably or be convinced that anyone else could either, I can use the mechanic responsibly and am able to respect it when the GM says no to something. And I'll just encourage everyone else to do so as well. At least that way we'll have less people using it only in game breaking ways. It's just sad that new people (or people who just accept errata without looking at the reasons why) will not end up realizing that their character being able to do magic creatively instead of just to "solve the problem" is even an option.

Edit: @Kindulas: Magical Tricks is incredibly specific and super low power. There is no middle ground for doing things that are just "neat" or "fun".

Oh hey, guys, we're all playing wrong. Again. Your argument would have more weight if anyone ever actually did anything you seem to think they do. Or if you were actually "responsible" and didn't try to gain an advantage or edge over other players whenever. All of the small things you want to do and think you can't anymore are all already covered in the form of different UTs and magical tricks. So quit telling us all we're wrong because you don't want to lose the one power that lets you do all of that and more.

Bronymous, Ramsus, both of your posts come off as a little bit heated. Calm down a bit, if you could.

Ramsus: Not everyone sees the way you do about this, and that doesn't mean that it's breaking the system, makes it flavorless, or extremely limiting. From experience, it's hard for people to see something from the same angle even after it's explained.

Bronymous: Please don't directly attack someone, even if it is unintentional, with things like "If you were responsible" and mocking their thoughts, since it is rare that things like that are taken without it being an insult. If you want to have a discussion focus on the matter at hand, and not the other person.

Not an official warning, yet, just a bit of a comment to keep things from getting out of hand.

I can't really say I support how you're proposing to do this, but I see the reasoning behind the idea. I have to say, however, that I have not personally seen anyone abuse Magecraft in my time on this forum. I don't really think you should limit it to this extent, players coming up with their own ways of doing things is pretty awesome and if the DM doesn't approve of what they're trying there's always Rule 0: What the DM says is correct, no matter what the rules say. Really, it depends on how people handle it, and I've not seen anyone handle it in a bad way.

LoganAura wrote:
Ramsus: Not everyone sees the way you do about this, and that doesn't mean that it's breaking the system, makes it flavorless, or extremely limiting. From experience, it's hard for people to see something from the same angle even after it's explained.

I don't recall saying anyone was obligated to share my opinion but, I do believe I am entitled to have it. I think functionally taking away everyone's ability to do anything that's between the really tiny amount of things Magical Tricks lets you do (you can't even permanently change something's color) and summoning Captain Planet in scale of power is a flavorkilling and limiting thing to do.

Personally I agree with ramsus but also think that Zarhons "Write magic" is a good talent on its own, Of course there could be a few changes like making it hidable runes instead of big obvious scrolls and not such a steep per-day limit but it's a cool idea and would be much more dependable then magecraft as it almost always would do what you want it do but probably won't do it as well. And that's about it, Not every person has to freak out about it, but I do have to say that I LOVE magecraft the way it is and if you change it you will make almost EVERY SINGLE MAGE have to be completely re-worked, thus making basically an angry mob with pitchforks and torches including me after the heads of everyone who posted voting to change it.

Drago765 wrote:I can't really say I support how you're proposing to do this, but I see the reasoning behind the idea. I have to say, however, that I have not personally seen anyone abuse Magecraft in my time on this forum. I don't really think you should limit it to this extent, players coming up with their own ways of doing things is pretty awesome and if the DM doesn't approve of what they're trying there's always Rule 0: What the DM says is correct, no matter what the rules say. Really, it depends on how people handle it, and I've not seen anyone handle it in a bad way.

Seconded.

I've always felt the best balance for magecraft is just a DM who's clear about how they feel it works.

I'd also add that I'm the kind of DM who can, will, and have just ruled certain official things banned if I feel they would unbalance the campaign. Or just house-ruled a shift in how something works. So if a DM is really dreading some player abusing magecraft or just doesn't really feel up to trying to balance the DCs for using it I'm all for them just house-ruling it banned in their game.

I don't really feel the skill needs an outright nerf since it does allow you a lot more versatility. And unlike the utilities which always succeed in being used, if not in the actual application, the player trying to use magecraft to mimic a utility can actually fail. Spectacularly.

@Kindulas: A lot of good ideas there. After digesting the two main points (original intentions for Magecraft and the At-Will problem), might I suggest the following change that tries to incorporate them?

Give Magical Tricks the ability to fiddle with magic in the way you wanted Magecraft to work originally (along with its current ability of doing all the mundane little magical tricks you could ever want).

Give Magecraft a daily limit. If you want to make it more interesting, you could increase that limit as people level up, perhaps something like 10/Day + 1/Level. With this change, you could perhaps also remove its prerequisite of Magical Tricks.

This way, people can simply take Magical Tricks for the ability to do simple tricks and fiddle with magic (call it the "Trixie" option), while those who want to really mess with magical forces beyond the ken of mortal ponies (the "Twilight" option) can take Magecraft. It has enough daily uses to be worth it (and increases in power along with the character), but the limit discourages people from a "When all you have is a magical hammer" mindset. And with the understanding that people can't just spam it at every problem, GMs could also be more lenient in allowing it to work (within reason) when players do decide to use it.

I realize a lot of people would be sad if magecraft were changed. I would be sad as well, considering I'm the one who actually made Kindulas realize just how bad it could be (sorry about that, too much fun was had). The problem is that, though most people may not abuse and many DMs know how to handle it, things have to be balanced for the worst case scenario, because there will come a time with anything that has the potential to be op where someone will abuse it and ruin the fun of the game for a lot of people or make the DM groan. I believe the proposed change is a balanced, albeit sad, fix that is indeed necessary. I also beleive, however, that the current iteration of magecraft should be kept as an optional supplement to be used at DM's discretion.

Philadelphus wrote:@Kindulas: A lot of good ideas there. After digesting the two main points (original intentions for Magecraft and the At-Will problem), might I suggest the following change that tries to incorporate them?

Give Magical Tricks the ability to fiddle with magic in the way you wanted Magecraft to work originally (along with its current ability of doing all the mundane little magical tricks you could ever want).

Give Magecraft a daily limit. If you want to make it more interesting, you could increase that limit as people level up, perhaps something like 10/Day + 1/Level. With this change, you could perhaps also remove its prerequisite of Magical Tricks.

This way, people can simply take Magical Tricks for the ability to do simple tricks and fiddle with magic (call it the "Trixie" option), while those who want to really mess with magical forces beyond the ken of mortal ponies (the "Twilight" option) can take Magecraft. It has enough daily uses to be worth it (and increases in power along with the character), but the limit discourages people from a "When all you have is a magical hammer" mindset. And with the understanding that people can't just spam it at every problem, GMs could also be more lenient in allowing it to work (within reason) when players do decide to use it.

10/day is probably too much (who makes that many checks, and how does it hinder players from spamming?). I think 3-5, +per level, is probably safe and not too restricting. Think there should still be the prerequisite too, unless Magecraft also allows the "fiddle with magic" option. Then something akin to "Write Magic" can be offered as a non-prerequisite option, perhaps?

Also, Lapis, how did you 'break' Magecraft, exactly?  

Zarhon wrote:Also, Lapis, how did you 'break' Magecraft, exactly?

I rolled nat 20 on my stealth check to sneak into the bedroom of someone whom the Dm said I had had unfavorable dealings with in the past, because my character was crazy. This guys happened to be very affluent and well protected, important later. Once in there, I spent the night preparing and used my magic point to perform magecraft to change him into a ridiculous combination of parts from multiple animals. Then I magecrafted to make myself mostly invisible and hide under his bed for when he awoke. After he got confused for while and decided not to leave his room, I knew I'd just have to make a run for it, so I ran for the door. The man grabbed my character so I rolled magecraft to burn him off of me. My roll was lowish, so the DM said I lit myself on fire. The only reasonable thing to do at this point was to run around the house covered in flames lighting things on fire. The house went into full lockdown, so I couldn't get out. Finally, I found myself cornered in a room, at which point I rolled magecraft again to extinguish the flames on me. With nowhere else to run, I blew myself up with one final magecraft roll to go out in a blaze of glory. It was a rather hilarious spectacle, actually. The number of times I used magecraft as well as my exploitative use of bonuses, mostly through magic points, to succeed almost every time showed Kindulas just how ridiculous magecraft can be and how much time it can eat up when one person uses it at-will as a response to every situation.

I'm confused. I don't see how that story would be any worse than if you'd used Heal to poison the guy and used fireborn to light his house on fire.

The point is that I did all of those things with ONE talent keyed off of ONE skill, never completely failing and taking up a ton of time constantly rolling it in response to everything.