Here’s my final take on the Wizard playbook (now called the Sorcerer); it uses Vancian spells and a MANA mechanic that mimics the way AMMO works. You may have seen an earlier (and very different) version here before.
The preview below doesn’t match but you can ignore that.
Flavor text:
Wizards aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Heads always in their books, playing at powers they barely understand. Sorcery is where the fun really is. No silly scrolls or ancient parchment to pore over, no years of study and in dusty corridors. Just pure, raw power. You were born with it, boiling inside you from the moment you first gasped for air , in a world ripe for the taking. Mana flows through your veins like hot lava, just aching to be released in whatever shape your heart desires. But you don’t control the Mana, do you? You’re just along for the ride. You’re a conduit for something far greater than yourself; without it you are nothing, and without you it is worthless. Sure, you aren’t always in control. And yes, sometimes it bites back. But what in life worth doing doesn’t sting, just a little? Now, you just have to ask yourself: “Do I have the power to take what’s mine?”
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzeF5GXNEsnfdDhkZV9tZDNwQVk
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Mana like ammo? GENIUS!
With the “Cast a Spell” move, is the text “The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast, take -1 ongoing to Cast a Spell until you rest for at least an hour” supposed to be a third bullet point? As it is currently formatted, it looks like you choose between two options on a 7-9, and additionally always suffer the -1 ongoing (possibly even on a 10+).
Robert Rendell yes it is, I’ll fix it straight away. It’s what I deserve for editing at midnight.
well done!
Mana costs seem too lenient. At 5th level, my Sorcerer would most likely have 18 INT, which would mean a 23 pt mana pool. That means I could cast 11 3rd level spells. On top of which, I would be able to gain Mana back albeit at a risk.
That outstrips the Wizard by leaps and bounds… who has to deal with the forgetting of spells on the 7-9 range (or choose another negative cost).
I play a 5th Wizard, and I rarely cast 11 spells in two sessions, much less one. Granted, we don’t do dungeon crawls all that often which would eat up a lot of spell castings. … but still, I would take the Sorcerer in a heart beat compared to the Wizard, no question.
MANA is INT modifier, not the Score.
This looks really great! Only thing I found unusual was the last sentence in the Spells section: “You cannot learn spells from a found scroll or book…” Felt out of place and oddly limiting.
Going to have one of my players give this a go this weekend!
Andrew Alwood thanks for the comment. I added that limitation as sort of an afterthought – I agree it’s unnecessarily limiting, especially since this is supposed to be a replacement for the Wizard. I’ll remove it.
Yochai, I am sorry I misread/misunderstood the Mana. Yes, huge difference and much better for it. Now, I see how trying to channel back Mana becomes a really meaningful die roll at the table. I love the class… I wish I was playing one.
Storn Cook I totally get it, it’s one thing I really don’t like about DW (and most D&D-like attribute systems): Ability Scores are different than modifiers. In the Worlds of Adventure hack that I worked on, my biggest contribution was writing an alternate abilities scale that did away with Scores entirely (so, just mods). It confuses even the best of us!
What does a failed Arcane Meditation roll look like?
Anyone using counterspell should pretty much wager all of their mana every time. A fully rested 5th level sorcerer would never fail, over and over. (Or, a 3rd level w/ Heart of Mana.)
Showoff should be a CHA roll. (I actually love the idea of CHA-based sorcerers, though.)
Lester Ward, you know, there’s a lot of things that could happen, but perhaps adding a 6- explainer would help. I’ll do that.
I see your point on counterspell – I’ll tweak it a bit so that it always costs something.
As for the last point, I considered making this a CHA only sorcerer (thematically it makes more sense, and the original D&D Sorcerer used boths spell points and CHA) but I wanted to create a playbook that acted a replacement for the Wizard, which is the only playbook that uses INT. As such I imagined people playing this without any other INT based casters (like, having a Wizard in the same party wouldn’t really work).
Hmm.
Lester Ward OK, I updated Arcane Meditation with a 6- consequence, and tweaked Counterspell so that it isn’t so powerful. I also added an additional boon to Protective Counterspell.
Oh, and I made Showoff use CHA.
Update:
The Sorcerer now uses CHA instead of INT as the base ability score. I also added/replaced a bunch of moves to make use of this change! I also took the total spells known at 1st level to just 3.
Oh: I also made a cool cover page/flavor text thingie as part of the PDF.
I think this thing is finally done!
Lester Ward I think you’ll be happy with the results.