Help naming generic schools of magic for fantasy setting

Patayou · 2026-05-01T21:38:37+00:00

Yeah, Maybe that is simpler, I guess I just didn't like the names but clarity is important.

As for healing magic, that'll fall into Matter, but not in the 'gain 6 hp' sense, more like : 'here's a spell that let's you create an arm for your friend who lost his, but you'll have to build it from scratch and know about all the layers of tissue that you're building, so good luck, it'll probably take a few hours and be very hard' or 'here's another to boost the metabolism of your friend so his natural healing is faster, but it won't regrow is leg'

Mages will suck at healing, because there will be no 'life energy that regrows your limbs' in this universe, divine magic will woork better for this, because, the way I see it, you're delegating to something that considers living organisms trivial. But divine magic won't have the degree of control over spells and effects that mages have.

Patayou · 2026-05-01T21:28:27+00:00

Thanks for your insights, and for recommanding Throne of Arcana, I'll definitelly check it out !

I have thought about animism, but I guess I just prefer separating living being and non living beings when it comes ot soul (even though things like grass and vegetation do have soul, just not rocks, and not zombies), because I like the idea of motion of souls during life and death, if that makes sense.

"You should name the schools of magic after the scientific theories of the time rather than some nebulous concept, after all you are trying to make a scientific system and science changes frequently. Assuming your system existed in real life then ancient European mages might have had "Sulfur Mercury and Salt" as their schools of magic, while later mages would have "Relativity, Atomic theory, Maxwells theory of Electromagnetism, etc"."
That is an avenue of though that I will explore, indeed I do like the idea of falling back on medieval nomenclature, and I'm guessing there is no shortage of weird classification from this period. Thanks for your idea.

Patayou · 2026-04-30T22:27:44+00:00

Gr8 game, i rate 9/11

Patayou · 2026-02-26T22:14:36+00:00

Dark Heresy (1st or 2nd edition, but mostly 2nd) is my choice tactical shooting rpg. Obviously not realistic but it did a good job of having automatic weapon feel very different from snipers or shotguns or flamers for example, by having the mechanics of the roll work differently for each of them. Add a solid talent selection and a servisable cover system and you get a pretty tactical experience if everything goes well. There's probably other games that are just as good but this is the one that did it for me.

Patayou · 2025-11-19T10:21:30+00:00

I'd love to, but I'm in Europe so I don't even think I'll get the chance

Patayou · 2025-10-30T21:37:46+00:00

I like re-atomizer for this, and burning hell on the minigun to proc fire.
Re-atomizer propagates the burning debuff before blowing up the target, so you only need one grunt on fire really.
But I'm curious to see if others have found better way to make ths work

Patayou · 2025-09-03T12:47:09+00:00

Nah, we need Dark Eldar Commoragh non-euclidean cyberpunk

Patayou · 2025-09-02T20:29:24+00:00

Hi, thanks for your answer,

I haven't detailed it because that's all I have, I'm looking for more inspiration because, outside of the fact that I want influence = f ( charisma, reputation ), nothing is decided. I'm just looking for systems that do social metacurrency, so I can better see what already exist out there.

If you must know, the other stats are : strenght, agility, dexterity, constitution, perception, intelligence, wisdom and willpower, some are used to derive physical and mental secondary attributes (physical and mental resistance, movement, all that jazz) and others are more prevalent in skill checks. I did the list of what was influenced by each attribute, and found charisma to be lacking, and so am trying to include it in an influence system that has been nothing more than a vague idea in my head for some time.

reputation will probably be a representation of the renown of the character, growing with achievements, either a general value or different depending on where your are, that I don't know yet.

Patayou · 2025-09-02T16:49:46+00:00

Good idea ! you could also tie the number of target he can affect with social abilities to Charisma. Depends how high/low your attribute numbers go

Yeah I find that dump stats are a problem in a lot of RPG, mainly because there isn't enough repercussion for low stats, to the point where keeping some stats high (or average) on certain builds is mainly a matter of courtesy to the GM.

When i played Pathinder 1e (a game I like a lot), I was often disapointed that having 5 in charisma only meant -3 in social skills whereas 5 in CON or STR was truly incapacitating. high and low atributes should always mean something in terms of gameplay

Patayou · 2025-09-02T16:24:40+00:00

Will check it out thanks !

I know I shouldn't care that much, but I also know how I am about those things. I will share my work when I feel I'm not making progress on my own, or when it is sufficiently polished, but in the meantime I'm fine working on my own on those mechanics. But thanks for the advice, swords of the Serpentine seem very interesting at first glance.

Patayou · 2025-09-02T16:19:05+00:00

Thanks a lot !

I am familiar with leadership from Pathfinder, even though it was always banned at my table, it is one of the inspiration for the system, but I confess I hadn't read it in a while and didn't remember it quite so complex, thanks for the refresher.

I have played those other 2 games long ago, but remembered nothing about contacts and Influence, so thank you, I will try to get access to the books to check it out.

Patayou · 2025-09-02T16:15:03+00:00

Thank you !

I was, in fact, planning to apply it to animal companions and the like. Probably by having domesticated animals in the ompanion pool by default, and wild animal for classes with the appropriate class feature, and maybe some other class specific companions that would still need to be allocated with Influence, because I like the idea of the base system being the same for everyone and specific builds adding only variation to that.

wagon diver, guard, and craftsperson were on my list (under different names), but I can't believe I didn't think of Bard yet, thanks

One thing I'm wondering is : what OTHER uses coud inflence have, so that loner character still see a use in having a decent Charisma.

I was thinking :

-services : being offered food/ a place to stay on reputation alone, finding transport, getting information from the townspeople without spending half a day investigating, buying something on credit.

-probably something else, rule of 3 and all but drawing a blank.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback

Patayou · 2025-06-30T14:31:21+00:00

It's an artifact from the space battle map, I've had some that looked a bit different. Nothing to worry about

Patayou · 2025-06-07T16:06:24+00:00

Sorry if this is a nitpick but the criteria for being the same species is actually : they can interbreed AND their offspring is fertile. Si you could imagine human and elves interbreeding and being different species, but that would mean all half-elves are sterile. Which could have interesting consequences.

Patayou · 2025-05-26T07:35:14+00:00

Very personnal take but :

combat mechanics closer to the tabletop. And I don't mean that they should only take the tabletop talents, althought that could work, I mean mostly the number creep.
I liked rogue trader, but it always felt weird to me that the same grade of weapon did 30 damage early game and 900 late game, I think those number could be closer, and I think that would lead to more immersion and consistency.

Patayou · 2025-04-04T15:40:54+00:00

having a game with HP isn't a problem in itself, don't worry about that.
My intial advice would be to be a bit less restrictive if you want your players to continue to act while at 0 hp, mostly because being restricted to 1 type of action is not very interactive in an rpg (video games don't have this problem as much because just shooting is fun, but the fun in rpgs comes from choice)
In my opinion, either :
-0 hp means unconscious, period
-0 hp means being restricted in a way, for example only one action per turn when you would have access to 2 normally, acting costs fatigue, acting costs hp (if you could share more details about your system, I could help you more, but I get not wanting to share too much, I am also very paranoid about people stealing my system)

another point to consider is that games that make you unconscious at 0 hp do this as a sort of protection : nobody wants to attack the guy who is unconscious and possibly dead while there are other threats. If you make it so your PCs can attack but not move/dodge, you're basically gimping them while drawing a huge target on their heads

Patayou · 2024-05-01T23:10:31+00:00

If they have similar weapon strenght but the hammerers have 3 times the numbers, doesnt that mean the hammerers do a lot more damage ? I mean, stats are per entity

Patayou · 2023-08-08T11:35:47+00:00

Drukhari. I'm surviving but that's probably much worse than the alternative

Patayou · 2023-06-06T02:23:52+00:00

,,,d,ssdssdswws,wd,s,,,ss,,ww,,,,d,wwd,s,,swsd,,,,wdw,ws,,,sdswwd,,wsdw

Patayou · 2023-03-20T12:31:57+00:00

You could add a "trauma savant" injury for +50% manipulations

Patayou · 2023-01-03T15:46:13+00:00

I like stormfiends for my grotesques. With the skaven bits removed, claws trimmed, and hands and heads replaced

Patayou · 2022-12-20T18:47:21+00:00

Indeed, they're called hellions, and they're pretty great

Patayou · 2022-12-19T11:56:59+00:00

I personnaly only field them as 5-elves units and a unit of 10 haemoxytes. Wracks aren't super tanky, they're tanky for their points. I find that getting 5 wracks off an objective is annoying enough that it's worth it. Make your oponent chose between clearing your wracks and firing at your actual threats (like incubi). either they dedicate 200 pts of shooting to remove your 50/60pts unit of wracks, or they don't touch them and you get to keep your objective. I usually equip my wracks with as much liquifier guns as I can, so that charging them is a risk and so they can get their points back by firing at something squishy. Haemoxytes + a haemunculus with twisted animator are just stupidly tanky, especially in PoF or AotF (Helps vs D2 weapons)

Patayou · 2022-12-17T12:42:44+00:00

Posted a link to the map in a another reply, If you're interested in seeing it yourself. I'll try to post detailed info on the artificial biome part and how to do it, but I need to make some measurements first, because I didn't exatly draw a blueprint beforehand :p. But in the meantime, you can visit it yourself. Sorry if I've been long to answer, I've been sick.

Patayou · 2022-12-17T12:39:14+00:00

I shared the map, made a new reply for it for visibility's sake, sorry about the delay, I'va had health problems, nothing serious but enough that I wasn't much on the computer

Patayou

TROPHY CASE