Alternate Spellcasting Rules for Knave 2e



I can't stop hacking Knave 2e. I think it's compulsory at this point; I honestly don't believe the Knave 2e rules even need this. This is really only something your game will want if you want magic to feel unpredictable and dangerous. I used Shadowdark and DCC as my main inspirations, but this system is still less punishing than those (I think, at least). Notably absent are the mishap tables from those games. 

Casting Spells: Casting a spell takes one action. The character makes an INT check with a starting DC of 12, and fills one of their inventory slots with Fatigue (Fatigue counts as a wound but is cleared after two watches of sleep anywhere).

If they succeed the check, the spell takes effect, the DC for the next check increases by 2, and they may cast another spell when they have an action to do so. 

If they fail the check, the spell still takes effect, but the character may not cast any more spells until they sleep for two watches, which will also reset the DC to 12. 

Low level knaves with 1 INT previously could only ever cast a single spell in a day. Now they have at least 1 spell per day, with a 50% chance that they will get at least one more cast. Meanwhile, with high INT, there's two forces working against the caster. The first is the looming chance of a random low roll, which will cut their streak short, and the second is Fatigue which begins to stack up. Every cast brings the caster a bit closer to death. I feel this strikes a better cost-benefit balance in a world where starting knaves can get 3 spellbooks if they invest all their stats into INT.

This system also interfaces extremely well with the Maleficence system which I outline in this post. The rules for it would be slightly modified to look something like this:

Maleficence: Any time a spell could be cast from a spellbook, instead the character can force raw arcane energy into a magical attack. The caster makes an INT check with whatever DC they are currently at to cast spells, and they gain one slot of Fatigue (Fatigue counts as a wound, but is cleared after two watches of sleep anywhere).

If they succeed the check, the attack hits a target(s) within 40'. It deals 1d6+INT damage to a single target or (1d6+INT)/2 to a group of clustered targets. The DC for the next check increases by 2, and they may cast another spell when they have an action to do so.

If they fail the check, the attack hits as above, but the character may not cast any more spells until they sleep for two watches, which will also reset the DC to 12.

Overload (optional): At any time Maleficence may be cast, the caster may choose to Overload one of their spellbooks. This attack always hits and deals INTd6 direct damage to a single target within 80', or half that to a group of clustered targets at that range. The caster gains a slot of Fatigue and the spellbook explodes, dealing INTd6 direct damage to the caster and the spellbook gets destroyed forever. Roll damage dealt to the caster separately from damage dealt to the targets.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intersections: Corners, but Better

Image
I thought a lot more about corners. In the last post about them, I highlighted a lot of issues around dealing with corners I hadn't figured out yet. I think the most glaring of which is what to do in a natural cave. Maybe you could try measuring angles or something, but there would probably be too many, and more importantly nobody wants to measure angles on a dungeon map. Corners are also pretty nebulously defined. I still don't have a good definition. "Trust your gut" is the best advice I can offer, and that's not good enough. I stared at dungeon maps and counted corners for a while. The spread between different types of modules was pretty wide, and I came to the conclusion that they're a pretty poor metric upon which to base the frequency of random encounters. But I noticed that some of the corners were the result of intersections in dungeon hallways, and I think they may be a much better substitute. Hallway intersections are just begging for traffic, where...
Read more

Random Magic Items for Knave 2e

Image
I threw together a little subsystem for making random magic items using the tables in Knave 2e. The page numbers referenced are from the final version pushed out on Kickstarter on February 8, 2024. If an updated version is published and the page numbers change, I'll try to remember to come back and update them. In instances where the user is called to reference the Spell Formulae table, the intent is to go through the spell generation process outlined on p. 27 using whichever result is rolled on the Spell Formulae table. Edit 5/17/24: I've removed staves from the table as they are essentially the same as spell books but you can hit someone with them, which basically just makes them a magic weapon. To replace that entry, Spellbook and Chaos spellbook have been broken into separate entries. Edit 8/22/24: I've reverted chaos spellbooks to allow a choice for whether to use Spell Formulae or Spells as is written in the Knave 2E manual. A chaos spellbook appeared in the game I...
Read more

Corners

Image
I agonized over the title for this one. It is difficult at this point of conception to succinctly condense my thoughts into something pithy though, hence the length of this post. I was mostly inspired by Dwiz's post Advanced Darkness ; I recommend you read this first to understand the rationale behind the 10' light radius that will be used as a fundamental part of this new framework. Corners Anyone who has played Counter-Strike or similar games understands the tactical problem which going around a corner presents. A corner can be one of the biggest obstacles in that game because of a simple fact: the person who rounds a corner is at a severe disadvantage against anyone around that corner who is standing still and watching that corner. This is due in part to a couple of mechanical factors in Counter-Strike which I won't go into detail about here, but it is largely due to the fact that there is no easy way to perceive or interact favorably with potential enemies around a corn...
Read more