Hello everyone.
I’m Arthur and I’ve been playing RPG for three years now. I finally decided to GM for the first time and I enjoyed it, so now I’m trying to get some people that I know into playing too .
Some of my friends don’t know what RPG or D&D are so I decided to get things they knew about, books, movies, series and adapt to a game. I started with the Harry Potter scenario and I’m using the Open Legend system to simulate the lack of rules to use magic in the scenario. I’m a D&D player mostly and the loose rules around the magic is giving me a hard time.
My problems:
I can’t rank all the spells. Some spells I can using the Bane and Boon system but other spells from the scenario conflict with the rules.
I don’t know if it’s my fault, but to me since the rules are simplified the spell system lose some of it’s ‘‘magic’’ (no pun intended).
Because in the scenario you can do almost everything with just a flick and some words, when I tried to adapt the scenario magics to the rules I realized that most are the same. Basically you just say what you want in latim and that’s it.
I wanted to do this scenario because it’s a common ground between all the people involved and some of them are real fans, so I’m trying to keep almost as possible identical to the books not just do a D&D Spellcaster only campaign or something like that. I know I’m asking to much.
I will say, I really like the books. I’m not here to hate the story or anything like that, I just like overthinking about things like that, see the rules that make the world and expand in that, but IMO this scenario is horrible in that. Again I’m not hating the books or the writer, they don’t have a problem, I do. Also, I’m not saying the OL it’s the problem, it’s perfect for what I’m trying to do, it’s just a problem trying to adapt the scenario to the rules and maintain the same feeling from the original source. I know it would be easier to change the scenario or the rules but I’m trying to make it work first, if everything else fails then I’ll change.
Please reply if you have an idea or thoughts on the matter, if you are like me and enjoy overthinking about stuff like this and want someone to talk to add me as a friend and we will talk (my girlfriend is tired of me talking about it).
The other scenario that I working on is the Percy Jackson & the Olympians. A favorite of my sister and also mine.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give and sorry if the post is in the wrong place or it’s confusing.
I’m trying to sort them in a way. Right now I’m creating categories (Combat, Support, RP) . The list it’s not finished yet, some spells have more than one bane or boon effect and I have to add later.
As an example: There is the Deprimo spell ( This spell places immense downward pressure on the target, which may result in the violent fracturing of said target. ), so the primary effect would something like a restriction power that if applied with enough strength could cause damage (so I would see it as a Combat spells). In a combat situation the player would have to forgo the damage to get the bane effect and after that I would have to make him use his action to maintain the effect and then cause the damage.
Now that I write this I realize that it’s no so bad, I could instead of making ‘‘spells’’ I could make ‘‘weapons’’ with the same effects. Will look into that.
I will say, so many people incorrectly think that they only have the banes and boons listed available to them.
You always have straight Attribute Action Rolls that the GM can set CR for a “spell” to activate.
Also, don’t forget success with a twist. That would be mostly the guy from the 2nd book (I think the 2nd book?) that was actually only good at doing the memory wipe spell and then claiming he was doing all the adventure and amazing things himself. When that guy tried to heal Harry’s arm, he made it “better”, but really worse (failure but the story progresses).
Another mod said he would post in a day or two, he just has to dig up the Hogwarts One-Shot he ran awhile back.
I think that the bane and boons are not the problem (or I’m just no seeing them as the problem), I’ll definitely use the success with a twist.
Maybe my problem it’s that I couldn’t put the spells in the ‘‘normal’’ rule. “Use the spell, if you hit the target suffers damage and are affected with a debuff status.” I think using spells as weapons would solve that.
Edit:
Here’s an idea and please tell me if it’s overpowered. I was thinking of during a spell attack the target could make a defense roll against the damage and another defense roll against the bane effect. Would that be a viable solution?
With an explosion spell as an example, defense roll against the damage (Guard) and then another roll to see if the target gets affected by the bane effect (Forced Move and Knockdown or just one of them).
You can check out the Bane Focus feat for an easy method of achieving this. It’s important to note that a successful attack doesn’t necessarily mean that the target is taking damage, they could be dodging hard, straining themselves to deflect the attack or something like that which is represented by their HP going down. Using the Bane Focus rules the target taking 5+ damage could represent the spell actually hitting them, and therefore being affected by the debuff.
I wouldn’t do multiple defend rolls for a single attack if I were you, that seems unnecessary. Also, are you aware that the Defend Interrupt action is something the that the target or their allies choose to make, not something that happens automatically? The caster rolls to hit the static Guard/Toughness/Resolve number, the defender can choose to defend if it the attack is successful and the roll replaces their defense if the roll is higher, but it takes up their next turn’s Major Action.
To clarify here, it’s an important part of Open Legend that attacks all happen with a single roll (plus a defense roll if the defender chooses). If the damage and bane are part of the same attack, they should use the same roll (see Bane Focus above) and be defended against using one roll (if the attack is successful and the defender or a nearby ally chooses).
Thank you very much for this. I starting to see that the problem is me, I did not think about using the combat like that, it makes sense and for some reason I couldn’t see it. My lack of experience as GM showing up it seems haha.
I think so too, it was just a bad idea I had trying to figure this out.
I think I know how that works, at least what you said it was what I had in mind.