OSR game with more dangerous magic

Personally I rather like the bolt on "leveless" spell system in Wonder & Wickedness. You can find it on Drive Thru, and it's quite elegant with a fairly small number of spells (all the spells found in the 1974 edition but all reskinned and broken into schools of magic), magic disasters and some bonus magic items. It's by the guy that wrote Necropraxis blog during the OSR and it's really very solid. LotFP managed to use a bunch of the same ideas about a year later in a less interesting way for one of its magic supplements.

I use one of the ideas from it, the "Maleficence" spell in all my games. Each wizard has a specific attack spell - it's their only attack spell and does damage based on their level against either a single target or area effect. The maleficence has a specific flavor chosen by the wizard and can be slotted in to replace any memorized spell at will. I like this because it encourage MU's not to only memorized damage spells and helps players get into the spirit of using magic creatively.

Gus L said:

Personally I rather like the bolt on "leveless" spell system in Wonder & Wickedness. You can find it on Drive Thru, and it's quite elegant with a fairly small number of spells (all the spells found in the 1974 edition but all reskinned and broken into schools of magic), magic disasters and some bonus magic items. It's by the guy that wrote Necropraxis blog during the OSR and it's really very solid. LotFP managed to use a bunch of the same ideas about a year later in a less interesting way for one of its magic supplements.

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Oooh, I had forgotten that this one has Russ Nicholson art. Damn. Must get.

Not really OSR, but The One Ring has a cool mechanic called "Eye Awareness", which sort of (but not really) means Sauron's awareness of your party's presence. When it gets too high, bad things happen. Magic use is one of the things that increases Eye Awareness.

I lost my ardor for The One Ring, but I still find some of the mechanics compelling.

Mannahnin said:

Oooh, I had forgotten that this one has Russ Nicholson art. Damn. Must get.

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I think there's some expansions by other people - or at least spell collections using the same system. Book of Gaub was I think the latest. I don't use the full system as I do like leveled spells, but it's a good one.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

That is one option but I'm lazy. If I could find a simple way to bolt WHFRP 2e magic system on OSE I'd do it I think. I could come up with a casting number for every spell and just convert it, but I'm looking for various options. Of which I've gotten a few in this thread so thanks everyone.

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The simplest way I could see doing it is set a baseline number to roll against based on spell level alone that determines whether a spell was cast correctly. As the level increases, so does the difficulty. (And since spell power doesn’t grow linearly, neither should the difficulty.)

And the effects of failure could be as simple as a chart akin to the results of a Rod of Wonder or Wild Magic table. For more giggles, have different charts for different schools of magic.

If you want characters to have some ability to mitigate those risks, you’d need some kind of saving throw (perhaps the same one as for the targets) or skill check.

Dannyalcatraz said:

The simplest way I could see doing it is set a baseline number to roll against based on spell level alone that determines whether a spell was cast correctly. As the level increases, so does the difficulty. (And since spell power doesn’t grow linearly, neither should the difficulty.)

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Both 5TD and SD keep it simple with linear DC10 +spell level difficulty, but I think it would be a pretty simple tweak to make the target jump by more than that. Maybe start at 8 and add the current spell level to the old difficulty?

So...
Level 1: DC 8
Level 2: DC 10
Level 3: DC 13
Level 4: DC 17
Level 5: DC 22
Level 6: DC 28
Level 7: DC 35

This would probably work best in a system that caps with level 5 spells, like (again) 5TD and SD. 5TD lets you add prof bonus and ability bonus to your casting roll. Could just go with caster level + ability bonus, but if the DCs get too low you don't want to allow re-casts. It gets too easy.

Dannyalcatraz said:

If you want characters to have some ability to mitigate those risks, you’d need some kind of saving throw (perhaps the same one as for the targets) or skill check.

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In the three year 5TD game I ran I found that "miscast on any failure" was too much. I house-ruled it to a simple fail and lose the spell if you missed the casting roll by 1-4, and a miscast if you missed by 5 or more, or on a 1 in any event.

I made rare magic items available which mitigated miscasts or failed rolls a limited number of times each day, or added a bonus to casting rolls. (one artifact which eventually did all three).

Freebooters on the Frontier, PbtA OSR style play. Magic User has a move called "Cast a Spell"

Cast Spell
When you cast a memorized spell, say what effect you want to create within the scope of the spell’s name, spend power to define it, and roll, taking +1 per point of unspent power: on a 10+, the spell works as intended; on a 9-, you suffer an arcane accident according to your roll:

9: Disturbance! The spell works as intended, but its casting draws unwanted attention.
8: Vacuity! The spell works as intended, but you forget it and may not cast it again until you re-memorize it.
7: Perplexity! The spell works as intended, but you burn 1d4 Intelligence.
6: Misfire! Mark Intelligence. The spell works, but affects a different target of the Judge’s choice.
5: Disruption! Mark Intelligence. The spell fails and you forget it, but arcane forces temporarily warp reality for the worse, in proportion to the spell’s intended effect, as described by the Judge.
4: Disaster! Mark Intelligence. The spell fails and you forget it, but someone or something nearby of the Judge’s choice (which might be you or an ally) suffers a permanent affliction or alteration of the Judge’s choosing, in proportion to the spell’s intended effect.
3 or less: Incursion! Mark Intelligence. The spell fails, you forget it, and some troublesome or dangerous arcane force of the Judge’s choice is released into this world. Left unchecked, it will worsen

DCC for sure. I've had the wildest things happen with that game.

I'm leaning towards DCC. I'm wondering how good the Dying Earth and Lankhmar box sets are? I like my settings for 60-70's swords and sorcery than most of what I've seen in modern settings.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

I'm leaning towards DCC. I'm wondering how good the Dying Earth and Lankhmar box sets are? I like my settings for 60-70's swords and sorcery than most of what I've seen in modern settings.

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Both are really good for classic sword and sorcery they do a good job of replicating Vance and Leiber respectively. If you like DCC and like either of those authors it's pretty much a no brainer purchase.